ALPHACORE INC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: AF222-0020

Description

Alphacore is proposing a high-efficiency solid state power amplifier (SSPA) capable of operation across a variety of possible radar transmitter and EW applications of interest to the AF for achieving battlespace dominance. The proposed wideband Ku-band SSPA for radar microwave sensing applications perfectly meets requirements wideband and high efficiency operation with competitive SWaP-C advantages and benefits of its excellent performance specifications, based on its previous Alphacore designs. Alphacore proposes to design, simulate, and verify a fully integrated SSPA for Ku-band applications. The proposed SSPA architecture utilizes a gallium nitride (GaN) process in order to provide high output power added efficiency (PAE), and speed. The SSPA will include ultra-wideband (2-18 GHz), high gain (saturated power gain > 15 dB), medium output power (Pout > 2W, 10W max.), and high power added efficiency (PAE > 50%). It will be designed using a gallium nitride on silicon carbide (GaN-on-SiC) process and will have an extended frequency range from 64 GHz to 72 GHz to compensate any process, voltage, and temperature variation. The design will have an operating temp range from -55˚C to +85˚C with temperature compensation circuitry accommodate a stretch goal of –55C to 125C. To achieve an output power of greater than 10 Watts, the SSPA will be designed by combining the generated power of separate PA MMICs.