DARPA details GaN project challenges
Device reliability is the number-one challenge facing the companies working on the three technology tracks that make up the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wide-bandgap semiconductors for RF applications program.
That's according to Mark Rosker, DARPA's program manager for the effort, who outlined the aims of the program to the compound semiconductor community at last week's CS Mantech conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.
With the two-year Phase I effort, which focused primarily on materials development, recently completed, Phase II and Phase III will take place over the next five years and concentrate first on device fabrication, then on MMIC design, before moving on to tackle module development for military applications.
Raytheon and Cree have now confirmed that they are the lead partners on the "Track 1" development, whose aim is to produce an X-band transmit/receive module based on GaN-on-SiC technology.
Worth an initial $26.9 million for the Phase II effort, the project is valued at $59.4 million if all program options are exercised.
Rosker told Mantech delegates that the focus of the Track 1 effort was on device efficiency for radar applications. If successful, the Track 1 module should produce six times more power than current technologies, said Rosker.
He added that a substantial improvement would be required at the MMIC level, a challenge that is common to all three technology tracks.
Working with Raytheon and Cree on the X-band module will be Cree's research and development center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of California, San Diego.
"Teaming with Cree is all about speed "“ combining the capabilities of the scientists at both companies will make this technology available to the warfighter much sooner," said Joe Smolko, Raytheon's program manager for the Track 1 effort.
Rosker echoed that sentiment in New Orleans, adding that he believed that the GaN "revolution" would have an "enormous impact on future military [radar and] communications systems".
