Konverterat

This report summarise the results in the project "Microwave components in SiC and GaN" during the years 2006-2008. Also the experiences from the previous projects in this area that has been conducted at FOI during the years 1997-2005 are regarded. The work has been performed in cooperation with Swedish universities, Swedish industry and internationally in cooperation with the Netherlands. In this final report an overview of the accomplished results, the effects and the international development in the area are presented. SiC and GaN have a number of material properties that gives an advantage for high frequency power components when compared to conventional semiconductors. These properties leads to higher power density, larger bandwidth for a given output power or higher total output power. SiC transistors for power amplifiers up to 2.7 GHz are now commercially available. The SiC MeSFET transistor that has been developed at Chalmers has a power density of 8 W/mm at 3 GHz with good efficiency, this is to our knowledge the highest power density reported for a SiC MeSFET. Also GaNtransistors for frequencies up to 6 GHz are now commercially available and GaNtransistors for use up to 18 GHz med 100 W output power are available as prototypes. The GaN-transistors that have been developed at Chalmers have reached a power density of 10 W/mm. A measurement on a large transistor showed an output power of 57 W with good efficiency. Very good low noise properties have also been measured on these devices. To reach good results for large bandwidths and higher frequencies MMIC circuits are needed. Chalmers has, as one of few universities developed MMIC processes for both SiC and GaN. Using this process a GaN based power amplifier for the X-band has been developed in cooperation with TNO. The results in this project and the international development in this area indicate that SiC and GaN components will be important in many future defense related microwave systems. Due to the large impact of these components on the performance of military microwave systems and the US export restrictions the future availability to this technology for the European defense industry is uncertain. In 2005 the Korrigan-program was started in Europe to ensure the availability of the GaN components for European industry. A number of the participants in Korrigan is or has been partners in the project Microwave components in SiC and GaN. The project has due to its long term nature been an important reason to today's strong Swedish position both in research and industry in this area. The long term competence building in this project together with more industrially oriented projects from the Swedish defence material administration and VINNOVA has contributed to a strong position for research groups at FOI, Linköping University and Chalmers as well as a strong position among Swedish defence authorities and defence industry when it comes to understanding and use of the new technology.