Photo Credit: Matthias Baumbach
TECHNOLOGY I RF TRANSISTORS
Towards efficient spaceborne millimetre-wave transmitters Through the project Kassiopeia, a European team is developing highly-efficient microwave and millimetre-wave amplifiers based on an iridium-sputter gate technology and a novel buffer BY JOACHIM WÜRFL FROM THE FERDINAND-BRAUN-INSTITUT, BERLIN
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processing facilities in new FBH clean room 50 ISSUE I 2022
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OVER THE LAST DECADE and more, there has been a significant increase in the maturity of GaN transistors and MMICs for microwave applications. Improvements in this regard, reflected in the technology readiness level, are allowing engineers to now implement these devices into mission critical systems.
and low weight, but is compromised by its efficiency. To address this shortcoming, it is incredibly important to bundle existing technologies and optimize them along the whole value-added chain – from the semiconductor substrate to epitaxy, processing, circuit design and system implementation.
One example of this is the deployment of decentralised microwave power sources in space applications. In this case, using GaN opens the door to light-weight, electronically controlled beam-steering systems, powered with many pixels of active antennas.
Our team is taking this approach through a project that commenced on 1 March 2021 entitled Kassiopeia – an acronym for Ka-band MMICs using novel epitaxy, processing and circuit concepts towards highly efficient GaN and AlN devices. We are supported by the European Space Agency, in the frame of the ARTES Advanced Technology initiative on European Ka-band high-power solid-state technology for active antennas.
Designers of such systems need to consider the pros and cons of using GaN, which majors on flexibility
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28/01/2022 12:25
