(edited by Baudry and Okumura)

Following the Europe/Japan teleconference on Future/Enhanced correlator plans of July 6, 2001 (see earlier minutes) the European, Japanese and North American teams working on the design of a second-generation correlator met in Nobeyama from 5 to 7 August 2001. Participants in the meeting were:

Europe: Baudry, Bos, de Vos

Japan: Chikada, Iguchi, Momose, Okumura, Ujihara,

North America: Escoffier

The spirit of this meeting was clearly oriented towards a high level of cooperation in view of taking a quick decision on a "Unified Design" for the second-generation correlator.

The meeting started with in-depth mutual exchange on the European and Japanese designs and on the status of the Baseline correlator. Several steps ahead were made during the Technical and Joint-Working Sessions. We briefly report below on the most important decisions and will pass to the ASAC a more detailed report on our 5-7 August meeting just before the next face-to-face meeting in Chile.

We will also send E-AEC a draft on the 3-way work plan for the second-generation correlator to be reported to the E-ACC before the next E-AEC face-to-face meeting on September 28-29, 2001.

A. Following the exchange of a number of documents and discussions on August 5 we have identified nine Areas of Common Interest where technical/theoretical details must be shared whichever final architecture is chosen. This covers a variety of topics from high-speed sampling or quantization/requantization to the location of the correlators. Nine joint reports will be edited with a first version due by the end of September, and there will be a more complete revision at the end of the year. Leaders and co-editors for each area have been identified.

B. We believe that sharing the development/prototyping tasks for a Unified Design of the second-generation correlator is feasible. Before we reach the point of a joint decision for a Unified Design not only reports on Areas of Common Interest must be completed, but in addition

1. Exchanges must be made between the teams proposing the two current designs and one or two industrial partners in order to compare quotations and gain better insight into the technical feasibility and implications on total physical size, power consumption, running costs etc. and,
2. Performance indicators of the two different designs must be jointly evaluated. The ASAC guidelines have been discussed but some points need clarification. Our questions are attached to this report and need to be answered on short notice, because specifications should be communicated to industry in October 2001.

All teams are cooperating (not competing) to select the most appropriate final design. A joint review of the Unified Design will be organized by mid-2002. The detailed design and prototyping phase of the Unified Design will start by mid-2002. The exact length of this phase is difficult to evaluate now but a plausible start-date for the industrial production is early 2005.

C. We have discussed the process leading to industrial procurement of the second-generation correlator in Japan. A dedicated and informal business session was organized to prepare an industrial implementation and quotation for both current designs.