Raytheon Secures DARPA Contract for Radio Frequency Transistor Enhancements

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded Raytheon, an RTX business, a four-year, $15 million contract for radio frequency sensor technology enhancements.

Raytheon will create improved high-power density, military-grade gallium nitride radio frequency transistors designed to deliver up to 16 times higher power output compared to traditional GaN transistors. Raytheon will work with the Naval Research Laboratory, Stanford University and Diamond Foundry to grow diamonds that will be integrated with the transistors.

Raytheon will also partner with Cornell University, Michigan State University, the University of Maryland and Pennsylvania State University, which will provide technology and performance analysis.

The prototype transistor development effort is part of DARPA’s Technologies for Heat Removal in Electronics at the Device Scale program, RTX said.

The transistor development contract is one of several awards Raytheon and RTX secured from the U.S. military in recent months.

In October, Raytheon secured a U.S. Army contract to improve the Advanced Distributed Radar concept. The business was tasked to develop the software required to integrate multiple Lower Tier Air & Missile Defense Sensor radars into the ADR, a platform designed to enhance threat mitigation capabilities.

Earlier in October, DARPA awarded Raytheon a contract to develop a rotating detonation engine under the Gambit program.