Glasgow spin-out focused on metamorphic HEMTs
An investment of up to £0.4 million ($0.8 million) will help a new company called XanIC commercialize metamorphic GaAs HEMT (MHEMT) technology developed in Scotland.
High-frequency, low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) based on the advanced structures are set to be used in new airport security scanner equipment, aircraft landing systems and high-speed data communications.
The investment comes from IP Group and Scottish Equity Partners, and XanIC will use a semiconductor process developed by Iain Thayne and colleagues at the University of Glasgow s James Watt Nanofabrication Centre.
The first MHEMT-based product will be a 94 GHz LNA, which has applications in security scanner systems such as millimeter-wave imagers.
These kinds of systems can detect a wide range of materials, including plastics, that conventional X-ray scanners are unable to pick up, and are expected to be widely deployed in airports in the future.
Thayne told compoundsemicoductor.net that the MHEMT structures offer the high-frequency performance of InP-based devices, coupled with the much simpler fabrication of a GaAs platform.
In the epitaxial design of GaAs MHEMTs, layers of InAlAs and InGaAs are deposited, and this extra indium content leads to higher electron mobilities that, in turn, translates to higher-frequency operation.
US companies like Northrop Grumman and HRL have developed similar high-performance components, but systems integrators in Europe have expressed a preference for a European supplier, which XanIC will now be looking to exploit.
A critical advantage that the company has is the availability of a large-area electron beam lithography tool at the James Watt Nanofabrication Centre. Using this and other equipment including MBE, the Glasgow team has developed a 50 nm gate-length process and record-breaking transistor characteristics.
In the first instance, prototypes and devices for sampling will be fabricated using the Centre s tools, although that manufacturing strategy may change if high volumes of components are required.
Thayne is retaining his primary role as a researcher at the University of Glasgow, while XanIC will be headed up by Nick Wood, who specializes in technology commercialization through his incubation company daVinci Ventures.
CEO Wood said, "There is a huge amount of commercial interest in XanIC s technology and products, which will deliver a step-change in the cost and performance of next-generation security systems."
