In 2001 CSIRO and U.S. telecommunications
giant TRW formed a strategic
alliance to develop high-performance gallium arsenide and indium phosphide
components for radio astronomy, advanced millimetre-wave sensors and
telecommunications systems. New Indium phosphide (InP) low-noise amplifiers
and digital receiver chips, designed by CSIRO engineers and fabricated by
Velocium, led to the development of MMICs, monolithic microwave integrated
circuits, allowing the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) to observe
up to a frequency of 105 GHz. - The photo to the left (credit: CSIRO) shows
one cooled millimetre receiver system with the 3-mm and 12-mm horns visible
at the top. On the right is an overlay of the Centaurus A galaxy (image by
David Malin) and an ATCA spectrum indicating HCO+ molecules moving rapidly
around the galaxy's central black hole (image credit: B. S. Koribalski).