- News
2 December 2011
Northrop Grumman awarded DARPA Microscale Power Conversion contract
US defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp of Linthicum, MD, USA has been awarded a contract by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop more efficient radio frequency (RF) transmitter technology through the Microscale Power Conversion program.
Under the three-year, $8.9m contract, Northrop Grumman will conduct research on high-efficiency transmitters with gallium nitride (GaN) Class E power amplifiers (PAs) in conjunction with RF wideband contour modulation and sub-banded switching supply modulation. The aim of the program is to develop RF power amplifier designs that incorporate supply modulation and control enabled by novel power switch technology.
The key to the research is to broaden the RF power amplifier’s supply modulation bandwidth up to 500MHz with composite efficiency of no less than 75% by employing the contour modulation to maintain efficiency performance of the amplifier. Contour modulation is a technique in which a phase-modulated signal waveform and amplifier output impedance work together to maintain higher efficiency over a sizable output power back-off. When supply modulation and contour modulation are working in concert, the dynamic range and efficiency of the power amplifier can be further improved. Microscale integration and packaging with thermal design considerations is critical in achieving the efficiency.
“With more innovative RF power amplifier designs, we can produce much more efficient RF transmitters without increasing their size,” says Pat Antkowiak, VP & general manager of Northrop Grumman’s Advanced Concepts & Technologies Division. “This technique can open the door to creating more powerful electronic systems for a wide variety of applications.”
The design work will be performed by Northrop Grumman and its subcontractors, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and TriQuint Semiconductor Inc of Hillsboro, OR. The final integration and demonstration will be done by Northrop Grumman in Linthicum. UCLA will work on system architecture and co-design, design of the complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuit and other elements, controls and test support. TriQuint will work on GaN and related process technologies.
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