Cree-Raytheon Team Wins DARPA Award To Develop GaN RF Semiconductors

Durham, NC -- Cree, Inc. announced today that a team led by Raytheon (as the prime contractor) and Cree (subcontractor) has won a program award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), under its Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Technology Initiative. The team will be developing next generation gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductors for military and commercial products. The program is focused on accelerating progress and targeting the insertion of GaN into military and commercial programs starting in 2006. The Cree-Raytheon team was formed to combine the efforts of two of the premier GaN RF teams in the United States to allow even faster development towards system needs.

"This program is perfectly aligned with Cree's strategy to be a supplier not only to the military but also to a wide variety of commercial applications," John Palmour, Cree's executive VP, Advanced Devices, stated. "The same improvements that will make GaN components viable for military systems insertion we believe will also make them viable for insertion into cellular infrastructure, as well as other burgeoning wireless applications. Combining our efforts with Raytheon is intended to accelerate the potential deployment of this important enabling technology."

The three-year, $26.9 million Cree-Raytheon program has a potential value of $59.4 million if all program options are exercised. Of this amount, the program award contemplates that $11 million will be subcontracted to Cree on the three-year effort, and $24.5 million in total if all of the options are exercised. Cree has been developing GaN-on-silicon carbide (SiC) RF devices since 1996. The semiconductor work for this program will be conducted at Raytheon RF components (Raytheon's MMIC foundry) in Andover, MA,s and in the Cree's Wide Bandgap MMIC foundry in Durham, NC, as well as in Cree's Santa Barbara Technology Center in Goleta, CA.

Source: Cree, Inc.