News

10 July 2006

 

TriQuint awarded Navy contract to develop GaAs high power technology

TriQuint Semiconductor has been awarded a 20-month, $3.1m contract from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to improve the manufacturing of high-power, high-voltage S-band gallium arsenide (GaAs) amplifiers. TriQuint, the sole contractor, will perform the work at its Richardson, Texas facility.

TriQuint’s high voltage pHEMT (pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor) technology will provide the higher power density and efficiency required for near-term production applications for the Navy, including phased array radar, electronic warfare and communications systems. The Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC is the contracting agency. TriQuint’s high voltage GaAs pHEMT technology has been in development since 2000, and an advanced X-band version of that process was developed under a previous ONR contract.

The new program has two primary objectives, split into phases:

• A MMIC (monolithic millimeter-wave integrated circuit) design optimization phase.
• A manufacturing cost reduction phase.

Phase 1 will see TriQuint design an S-band high power amplifier suitable for a wide range of applications. Design goals include high power and efficiency with a minimum 24V operating voltage.

Anthony Balistreri, contract program manager and director of R&D, said: "Winning this contract demonstrates the government's confidence in TriQuint's ability to develop the critical technologies needed for Department of Defense applications. High voltage gallium arsenide is a tested and proven technology that demonstrates high reliability using existing processes and materials, ideally suited for military and commercial production programs."

Gailon Brehm, TriQuint's military business unit director, said: "TriQuint currently supplies high volume, cost effective foundry services and standard products based on high voltage gallium arsenide. This enhanced S-band technology provides the higher voltage needed for both military and commercial applications at frequencies below 6 GHz."

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