Monolithic Silicon Carbide Power Amplifier for Munition Links

Future "intelligent" loitering weapons require a communications link with an efficient, flexible, high power radio power amplifier matched to the weapon's demanding size, weight, and power efficiency requirements. The short operating life, low cost, linear amplification, and wide range of frequency and modulations together comprise a challenging specification for such an amplifier. However, attaining these capabilities will result in proliferation of communications-equipped loitering weapons, which will result in a very significant increase in lethality and military effectiveness by virtue of increasing the weapon's situational awareness and precision. Softronics offers a novel approach based on Silicon Carbide (SiC) technology, and specifically a monolithic, direct-coupled power amplifier spanning 0-4 GHz. The superior thermal characteristics of SiC, combined with its 10 GHz cutoff frequency, radiation hardness, and very small die sizes, allow a small MMIC to be economically built using existing 2 inch wafer processing facilities. Softronics will generate and simulate a candidate design, in preparation for a proof-of-concept fabrication run in Phase II.