The Correlator Enclosure

The enclosure will not be the typical crate type enclosure. Crates are usually used if a backplane is required. Backplanes are used to transmit high speed signals on a bus and power. The MINT correlator has no high speed digital signals. All signals come in and out on their own connector. Power also comes in on a high gauge connector.

Each correlator card has an estimated power of about 200 Watts. This presents a formidable cooling problem. It is also desirable to isolate each RF section from digital noise. The enclosure can perform both of these tasked if it is carefully milled to heat sink all of the chips and provide separate Faraday boxes for each rf Circuit. The idea is to have each correlator card in its own enclosure, all water cooled and possibly temperature controlled.