Cobham-RFHIC team up to develop GaN-based RF products
NewsMarch 16, 2016
LANSDALE, Pa. Officials at RFHIC Corp. of Korea and Cobham have signed a strategic Memorandum of Agreement, in which Cobham engineers will incorporate RFHIC?s Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology into the company's next-generation RF products.
Within the agreement, Cobham and RFHIC engineers will develop GaN High Power Amplifier (HPA) modules that can be integrated into a 175 KW solid-state transmitter prototype. Work will be performed by Cobham Integrated Electronics Solutions, a business unit of CAES at its Exeter, New Hampshire site.
"GaN-based Solid State Transmitter technology is affordable, reliable, and scalable, and has a number of advantages over traditional Vacuum Electronic Devices (VED) used in current transmitter designs," says Bob McArthur, Business Area Vice President for Cobham Integrated Electronic Solutions. "Benefits include a significant increase in Mean Time Between Critical Failure (MTBCF), substantial decreases in operational and sustainment costs, and graceful degradation in the event of hardware failure, as opposed to single point of failure or instantaneous shutdown."
RFHIC and Cobham will combine their experience and portfolio to explore domestic and international civil and military radar applications for GaN-based solid-state technologies. This partnership will also help provide offset obligations between Korean military and U.S. Navy contracts, officials say.
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