The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded BAE Systems’ FAST Labs research and development organisation a USD 12 million (EUR 11 million) contract for the Technologies for Heat Removal in Electronics at the Device Scale (THREADS) programme.
DARPA’s THREADS programme aims to overcome the temperature limits at the transistor scale inherent to power-amplifying functions. With new materials and approaches to diffusing the heat that degrades performance and mission life for monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs), THREADS aims to resolve the thermal management challenges of today’s gallium nitride (GaN) devices, such as radars.
“Many military systems leverage radio frequency (RF) electronics and have historically operated at powers well below their theoretical limits because the GaN transistors get too hot,” BAE Systems noted. “Solving this challenge will improve the range of RF-based systems by nearly threefold. This will expand engagement distances for warfighters – taking them further out of harm’s way.
“Excessive heat in electronics has been a longstanding challenge in the aerospace and defence industry,” Caprice Gray, director of Device Materials and Manufacturing Research at BAE Systems’ FAST Labs, was quoted as saying in a company press release. “With material and process enhancements we are on the verge of overcoming this challenge and doing so will unleash the hidden potential in mission-critical electronic warfare and other RF-based systems.”
BAE Systems will leverage its expertise and track record of developing and manufacturing advanced microelectronics for the programme at its Microelectronics Center (MEC) in Nashua, New Hampshire. The MEC is an accredited Category 1A Trusted Supplier for the US Department of Defense (DoD) and manufactures GaN and gallium arsenide integrated circuits in production quantities for critical DoD programmes.
Work on the THREADS programme includes collaboration with Modern Microsystems, Penn State University, Stanford University, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Texas at Dallas.
