ALPHACORE INC — National Aeronautics and Space Administration SBIR Phase I: S1

Description

Alphacore Inc. proposes tonbsp;design, simulate, and verify a radiation-hard fully integrated solid-state power amplifier (PA) for V-band applications (67-71GHz)), including CubeSat/Small Sat platform applications.nbsp;such as suitable for CubeSat/Small Sat platforms.nbsp;The proposed PA architecture utilizes a gallium nitride (GaN) processnbsp;in order tonbsp;provide high output power, efficiency and speed.nbsp;The proposed PA will have 6 GHz of bandwidth around the center frequency (68GHz).nbsp;nbsp;The proposed amplifier will be designed using HRLrsquo;s T3 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 (PVT) variation. The design will have a radiationnbsp;hardness level gt;1Mrad and operating temperature range from -55°C to +85°C.nbsp;Additional temperature compensation circuitry will be addednbsp;to accommodate anbsp;stretch goal of ndash;55C to 125C.nbsp;To achieve an output power of greater than 10nbsp;Watt, the PA will be designed by combining the generated power of separate PA MMICs.nbsp;The radiation-hard techniques provided by Alphacore Inc. ensures the correct operation of the PA for CubeSat/Small Sat platforms with high power added efficiency (PAE). The proposed PAnbsp;is able tonbsp;operate with variable duty cycle input signal that covers the 25% requirement. The amplifier consists of multiple multi-stage GaN-based amplifiers, each in a monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC) package that provides high output power and speed at the same time.nbsp;