For the first time ever, European GaN technology has been qualified for a European Space Agency (ESA) space mission! This work presents the methodology and results obtained in a rigorous qualification of hermetic packaged microwave GaN components following the ESCC standards and beyond. In order to ensure the necessary performance level and stability of the components throughout the BIOMASS mission, the devices were subjected to extensive mechanical, assembly, endurance and space operating environmental tests. The results represent a major breakthrough in the technology maturity and application readiness of GaN RF devices. Additionally, this work enables and simplifies future qualifications of GaN-based components by serving as reference material and contributing to GaN specific ESCC qualification standards.

Leonardo Company started its experience on GaN technology in 2005, obtaining significant results on dedicated chipset for C- and X-Band TRM applications by the consolidation of 0.5 and 0.25µm gate-length technologies. The high performance - reliability of discrete device and passive components allowed the development of HPA, LNA and Switches MMICs for satisfying company requirements as well as ESA, ASI and EDA requests of new technologies development.
Italian Space Agency (ASI) funded the development of GaN based HPA and LNA in Space Equipment and Payload, specifically tailored for application in future SAR systems and to promote the “enabling technology” of LDO Foundry also for Space Application.
Leonardo is also involved in several R&D GaN-based projects for 0.25µm and 0.15µm technology assessment on reliability and robustness in order to develop an industrial process in order to satisfy all the requirements related to the high performance TRM functions for GaN Radars applications.

After the development and the qualification of three GaN technologies for applications up to 20GHz, UMS has been developing new technologies to extend the application range up to 50GHz. In order to better address the different requirements in terms of performances and market, two technologies are being developed. The first one, 4GH15-10 is focusing on the frequencies below 35GHz whereas the second one, 4GH10-10 will target the higher frequencies up to 52GHz. The paper describes the current status and results obtained on both technologies. On 4GH15-10, we demonstrated 3W/mm at 30GHz on a power transistor of 8x50µm and MMICs have already been successfully fabricated reaching 38dBm between 30 and 37GHz. On 4GH10-10, we performed load-pull measurements up to 47GHz on 4x50micron power transistors demonstrating a linear gain of 10dB, an output power of 2W/mm and a PAE of 40% for a drain voltage of 15V.

The OMMIC foundry proposes on a commercial basis a foundry access to a 100nm gate length GaN on Silicon process for applications from Ku band up to V band.

The main features of this millimetre wave GaN/Si process will be presented, together with reliability results including space use, and Design Kit insights.

We will also present a large range of circuits which have been designed, fabricated and tested, including Low Noise amplifiers at 12 or 30 GHz, Power Amplifiers at 30, 40, 48 GHz, Switches at 30 GHz and a T/R chip at 30 GHz.

A 60nm option is also available for higher frequency applications and the 6 inch line enables full production of large MMICs and volume production of 5G millimetre wave products.

This paper addresses some of the current issues of GaN and GaAs technologies. We will indicate areas of improvement that would lower the overall cost of using GaN in commercial mm-wave systems. Most of these improvements are in the area of scalability (CMOS compatibility), performance and packaging. The latter two requires moving from the predominately Au pad stacks to modern Cu metal schemes.

Said improvements are partly addressed in a number of ongoing national and European research projects. Most of these projects are still in an early phase and the results are still pending. The objective of the presentation is to give an overview of ongoing activities and provide opportunity for potential coordination.