L-Band Solid-State High Power Amplifier for Airborne Platforms

Utilizing Nitronex’s solid state GaN FETs and SAIC’s design expertise in PAs, a small, lightweight power amplifier can be achieved. Specifically, in this phase I effort, Nitronex will advance GaN technology and design high power (>250W) devices with very low thermal resistance in order to provide building blocks required for the PA. Nitronex will perform extensive thermal simulations and arrive at layouts achieving high power with a thermal resistance of <0.5°C/W. Nitronex will update the existing CFET device models to reflect the changes made to the device layout. Then, SAIC and Nitronex will jointly determine best practice to achieve matching elements needed to optimize device performance. SAIC will utilize the device model and explore PA architectures that can achieve the required performance. SAIC will design and simulate a basic unit of the PA and demonstrate ~250W CW power in the L-band through simulation and show how such units can then be combined to reach a total output power of 1000 W. Nitronex will fabricate the discrete device and measure actual thermal resistance improvement achieved along with RF CW output power achieved in the L-band. This activity will also help to validate thermal and RF models.