$750 million defense contract for silicon-on-diamond development
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Manufacturing News, Source : The Manufacturer US
Published : 29 Jun 2006 15:16
sp3, a global provider of diamond-based solutions for electronics thermal management, has been awarded a Phase II contract from the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) for the development of silicon-on-diamond (SOD) devices.
The award follows the company's work in Phase I of the MDA project, in which sp3 delivered 100mm SOD wafers with a top surface of GaN (gallium nitride, the most important semiconductor material since silicon). sp3 is supplying SOD wafers ranging in size from 50mm to 300mm for use in various research and development projects in active device thermal management, MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) structures and sensor applications.
With a thermal conductivity 10 times better than silicon and two to three times better than silicon carbide, diamond films are expected to provide a path for integrated thermal management in applications that are becoming performance limited by thermal issues.
Nitronex Corporation, a developer of GaN-on-silicon technology for commercial and broadband wireless markets, is working with sp3 on the fabrication of GaN material on the sp3 SOD substrate. Nitronex will now build active high power devices as part of this next phase. "The ability to integrate a diamond thermal layer into our GaN on silicon strategy is of great interest to Nitronex," said Kevin Linthicum, co-founder and chief technical officer.
TriQuint Semiconductor will also be modeling this technology for its high frequency MMIC (monolithic millimeter-wave integrated circuits) development as part of this effort. "With the push by the military for tripling device power and adding 50 percent greater efficiencies, materials such as sp3's GaN on SOD have a high probability of being the substrate solution of the future," said Tom Cordner, vice president, TriQuint Texas. "We will work closely with the material to move it toward products as soon as possible."
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