Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Based Electronic Components for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)

ABSTRACT: Our Phase II project on"Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Based Electronic Components for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)"will aim to model, design, fabricate, optimize and characterize RF CNT devices and circuits that are critical for RF transceiver applications in radar, communications and a variety of military systems within Unmanned Aircraft Systems. The goal of Phase II will be to develop our CNT RF FET T-gate device into a manufacturable prototype with improved capabilities beyond the state of the art with respect to linearity and power dissipation. Within Phase I our team fabricated T-gate based RF devices/circuits achieving device cut-off frequencies of 20GHz with unity power gain of 10GHz which is the highest reported extrinsic performance of CNT RF device report in the public domain. In Phase II, we will improve our large signal device model to include linearity and noise components. This will allow optimization of CNT FET design, leading to CNT FET RF circuit design and implementations. Our fabrication approach consists of fabricating supporting/peripheral CMOS passives and integrating our"in-house"CNT as a post-CMOS process. Our characterization will obtain linearity results such as IIP3, OIP3, as well as noise performance. BENEFIT: A key driver of this project aims at improving unmanned aircraft electronics systems. Given the use of high powered RF systems that includes various data links, command and control communications, RF sensors, radar and line of sight and beyond line of sight sensors and communications, much improvement in increased battery life and increased flight time can be obtained by use of CNT RF FET devices. Furthermore, such motivational factors are relevant for all military mobile communication and"electronic heavy"equipment units such as the soldier (lighter communication handheld devices) and naval equipment (lighter & more mobile). Advances from this proposal have the potential to revolutionize the $60 billion analog and mixed signal semiconductor markets. In particular, this technology will directly impact critical RF front end components used in state-of-the-art transceiver architectures. Superior low power and highly linear device will impact the following market segments: Low-Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) RF amplifiers primarily used in communication systems to amplify weak signals captured by an antenna. Broadband Amplifiers RF amplifiers with a flat response over a wide range of frequencies. RF Power Amplifiers RF amplifiers that convert a low-power radio frequency signal into a larger signal for driving the antenna of a transmitter. RF & Microwave Amplifiers Used for high-power amplification at low microwave frequencies. Other opportunities include mixer circuits and VCOs.