SBIR-STTR Award

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is the significant advancement of U.S. wireless technology and infrastructure. The proposed research applies an innovative high-frequency radio-frequency design process to address emerging market needs that current products and design processes are unable to meet. The key feature of the design process proposed is its basis on technically rigorous transistor-centric measurement and model-based design processes and capabilities. This will serve present and next generation applications in legacy 3G/4G, emerging 5G, Public Safety and Wireless Charging markets. The proposed project uses an innovative high-efficiency design technique for solid state power amplifier (SSPA) integrated circuit (IC) products operating in the Ultra-High Frequency (UHF), S and C bands. These new IC's will utilize GaN-on-Si, which is far more cost-viable with high volume wafer sizes up to eight-inches in diameter as compared to the conventional GaN-on-SiC substrate material. Use of GaN-on-Si semiconductors, combined with our new design technique, will achieve efficiencies far beyond incumbent products through waveform engineering and time-domain load-pull methods. Anticipated technical results include GaN SSPA pallet amplifier products realized on the UHF, S and C bands by the end of Phase I, corresponding to the markets of wireless charging/RF-energy, public safety wireless networks and 5G communications. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will contribute to the advancement of the US’s competitiveness in Semiconductor based products, while also enhancing the national defense and minimizing the electricity requirements of next-generation wireless communications infrastructure equipment. This project will develop state-of-the-art Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuit Power Amplifiers (RFIC-PA), Mixers, and Switches through a leading U.S.-based semiconductor foundry. These innovated circuits will contribute to modernizing the U.S.’s 5G communications infrastructure while restoring the country’s prominence in semiconductor-based technologies. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will significantly enhance the output power and efficiency of RFIC-PA technologies over the present-day/competing state-of-the-art products. The RFIC-PA is the most voluminous, costly, and power consumptive component of emerging 5G macro and small cellular base stations, and the wireless devices connected to them. For this reason, this project will apply innovative RFIC-PA design methods at the very forefront of high-efficiency RFIC design techniques toward the design, fabrication, test, and commercialization of five discriminating RFIC-PA products at the conclusion of this NSF Phase-2 project.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.