The main objective of SGAN-Next is to develop a fully European GaN on SiC foundry process and demonstrate outstanding performance at high frequency beyond Q-band, through the design of efficient and robust SSPA, LNA and switch devices for flexible LEO/GEO payloads. For this purpose, the project led by SENER as satellite equipment manufacturer, includes an epitaxy manufacturer (SweGaN), an industrial foundry (UMS), a research foundry (FBH) and two Universities (UNIBO and UAB). Moreover, the consortium count on the two main European satellite prime contractors (ADS and TAS) for the conceptual definition of services and the required system to answer market demand. SGaN-Next aims to secure a European supply chain with GaN epitaxial wafers provided by SweGaN. For this new process, Q/V band power cells will be designed making use of novel processing modules and epitaxial concepts which reduce parasitic losses and increase thermal drain to heat sink. In parallel, UMS provides access to its 0.1-µm GaN technology (GH10-10), which will be optimized and submitted to a space qualification assessment through two runs available for MMICs design and validation. Microwave characterisation of GaN technology performance by model refinement and device characterisation will be addressed to improve MMIC design process along the project. As highly efficient PAs are essential for Telecom active antennas with high number of active units, at least three PAs design concepts are proposed to answer the needs identified at equipment level. The efficiency has a critical impact on the extra power demanded to the system and the increased complexity to dissipate. On the reception side, a design of a LNA as well as a switch for robust RF front-end will be addressed. Last, but not least, packaging techniques will be evaluated for space use and finally, a demonstrator of an SSPA for actual antenna systems based on the designed MMIC’s will be developed and tested under space environmental conditions.

The GENGHIS KhAN project proposes to develop new AlInN/GaN WGB technology for millimeter wave applications dedicated to satellite communications. In the RF business, GaN HEMT is now ready to challenge Si LDMOS and GaAs pHEMT in the telecommunication base stations market (3G, 4G, WiMAX...). With devices reaching 150W @ 6GHz under 48V bias, the GaN technology could be implemented within the 2 millions deployed mobile phone base stations and emerging WiMAX infrastructures. Nevertheless, developments are still on going to widen the market of WBG technologies toward high frequency. Researches and developments are ongoing from X-band (8 GHz) up to E band (90 GHz) in Europe (UMS, SELEX SI), Japan (FUJISTU, NEC, Matsushita Electric Industrial) and in the United States (TRIQUINT, RFMD, CREE, RAYTHEON, HRL, NORTHROP GRUMMAN…). This proposal is focused on the evaluation and development of a new generation of wide band gap (WBG) GaN technology for high frequency operation. This project will take advantage of the new lattice-matched AlInN/GaN heterostructure, which shows evidences of better frequency performances than other components. The main technologies, which can be used today for solid-state microwave power generation, are based on silicon (Si), gallium arsenide (GaAs), and AlGaN/GaN. Considering 10W output power target, the operation frequency cut-offs of those different technologies are roughly 4GHz, 10GHz and 18GHz respectively. The new AlInN/GaN heterostructure was pioneered by Europe through the EU programs “ULTRAGAN” (Future Emerging Technology STREP - FP6, c.f. http://www.ultragan.eu/ ) and “MORGAN” (NMP - IP - FP7, c.f. http://www.morganproject.eu/ ) , both projects being lead by Alcatel Thales III-V Lab. Those projects improved drastically the reputation of the European research in GaN for microelectronics, thanks to disruptive results, with the demonstrations of 10W/mm at 10GHz with power added efficiency (PAE) of 56%, 13W/mm at 3.5GHz with PAE up to 70%, and 4.3W/mm with 43% PAE at 18GHz. These PAE are impressive; they were not expected few years ago for nitrides. Moreover it was also demonstrated an incredible thermal stability never observed previously for any other transistor type with electrical operation at temperatures of 800°C for hundreds of hours.

Telecom infrastructures are based on various standards using different modulation schemes (PSK, QPSK…..) characterized by a Peak to Average signal Ratio (PAR) which can reach 10.5dB for W-CDMA modulation. The expected 4G standards (Evolved UMTS and WiMax) are operating OFDM multiplexing technology which presents the advantage to be robust but leads to increase the PAR in parallel. Combining stronger electric performances requirement (linearity and RF power) and the economical constraint of the zero defect, it is evident that the reliability of power amplifier appears to be a crucial aspect. UMS, main industrial actor in the field of microwave electronic components and circuits, intends to industrialize GaN based power component covering such telecom applications. Wide band gap technologies represent the corner stone for the next generation of telecommunication systems and such development is critical to maintain independence and industrial competitiveness in Europe. The technological process maturity is a key factor to reach reliability requirement. This explains why the purpose of this project is the development of a specific and dedicated methodology for characterization and physical analysis of GaN technologies. The ReaGaN project clearly aims at supporting the industrialization of GaN technologies. This requires a deeper understanding of the physical mechanisms taking place in GaN devices as well as the investigation of material properties and their evolution during the process as they determines the resulting performances of the amplifier. To reach this end, new analysis techniques dedicated to Wide Band Gap semiconductor technologies have still to be improved or developed. These analytical techniques include electrical diagnostics as well as physical and structural characterization techniques. In particular, it is expected that the correlation of the results given by electrical and physical techniques proposed and used in this project will lead to the identification, characterisation and localization of nano-structural defects and physical mechanisms taking place in GaN technologies and potentially responsible for degradation. During this project, devices issued from the evaluation and qualification of UMS processes will be analyzed in significant details. UMS is currently developing two GaN technologies built on SiC substrate for high thermal properties: Power bar GH50, and Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) GH25 technologies based on 0.5µm and 0.25µm gate length transistor respectively. During this project, specific devices or structures will be procured to the consortium partners to investigate particular processing options of the technology (eg gate module, passivation, epistructure …). The life tests of the devices will be performed in the frame of UMS internal projects. The comparative analysis of different processing steps will provide important and pertinent information to support the step-up of the GH25 and GH50 technologies from one generation to the next one. The complementarities between techniques will be demonstrated as a proof of the existing interaction between electrical transport properties, light characteristic and material structural properties. This project involves three academic partners (IMS UMR CNRS, LAAS UPR CNRS, LEPMI UMR CNRS) and three companies (UMS, TRT, SERMA). The project duration isof three years.

TA new generation of communications infrastructure is currently in development. The fifth generation (5G) communications technologies will provide internet access to a wide range of applications: from billions of low data rate sensors to high resolution video streaming. The 5G network is designed to scale across these different use cases and will use different radio access technologies for each use case. To support very high data rates 5G will use wide bandwidth spectrum allocation at mm-wave frequencies. The offered bandwidth at the mm-wave frequencies (above 24 GHz) is more than 10 times as large as that in the lower bands (sub 6 GHz). However, the move to mm-waves comes at a cost – increased path loss. This makes it extremely challenging to provide coverage at mm-wave frequencies. A partial remedy is to use beamforming to direct the radio energy to a specific user. For some deployment scenarios beamforming is not enough and the output power must also be increased. A major challenge is to bring affordable, high-performance mm-wave active antenna arrays into production. There is currently a market pull for this systems. The main objectives of the “5G_GaN2” proposal are substantial lowering the cost, power consumption and increase the output power of mm-wave active antenna systems. Advanced Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology will be used to get maximum output power and energy efficiency. High-volume and low-cost packaging and integration techniques developed for digital applications (CMOS) will be used. The capabilities of the developed technology will be shown in a set demonstrators. The application driven demonstrators will be used to guide the technology development towards maximum impact and exploitation in the post project phase. The consortium spans the complete value chain: from wafer suppliers, semiconductor fabrication and system integrators. In addition, key universities and research institutes guarantees academic excellence throughout the project.