Cobham and South Korea’s RFHIC Corp. are teaming up to produce gallium nitride (GaN) radars.
The two companies will jointly develop GaN High Power Amplifier (HPA) modules that will be integrated into a prototype 175-kilowatt solid-state transmitter, according to a Cobham news release.
“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,” said Bob McArthur, a vice president of Cobham Integrated Electronic Solutions. “Benefits include a significant increase in Mean Time Between Critical Failure, 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.”
The two companies will explore military and civil radar applications of GaN-based solid state technologies.
“Additionally, the partnership between Cobham and RFHIC may help provide offset obligations between Korean military and US Navy contracts,” Cobham said.
