Qorvo has been awarded a three-year contract from the DoD to further advance the development of copper-pillar-on-GaN flip-chip technology. This Department of Defense (DoD) program will create a high-yield domestic foundry to mature the copper flip assembly process, which enables vertical die stacking in space-constrained phased array radar systems and other defense electronics.
Conventional module-level integration on printed wiring boards is performed by wire bonding and uses metal housing and chip-and-wire modules. This wastes space while adding weight and cost to the system. Copper pillar flip-chip technology enables vertical stacking of die to integrate many more components, resulting in a tighter die-to-die and die-to package spacing to reduce module weight and cost.
While copper flip-chip is used today in high volume for GaAs and silicon RF applications, copper pillar flip-chip GaN technology is typically produced only in small quantities using a costly prototype process. Qorvo's goal under the contract is to establish a high-yield, reliable copper flip-chip GaN MMIC technology and achieve Manufacturing Readiness Level 9 by 2022. The three-year contract is being administered by the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, on behalf of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Defense-wide Manufacturing Science & Technology (DMS&T).
This contract leverages Qorvo's 30-year investment in GaN and GaAs manufacturing and packaging technology. By maturing today's copper pillar flip-chip technology and pushing it to new levels of RF performance, Qorvo will increase yields, shorten manufacturing time and significantly reduce costs in both defense and commercial phased array applications.
Qorvo offers the industry's broadest RF GaN-on-SiC portfolio to help customers realize superior efficiency and operational bandwidth. The company's RF GaN-on-SiC products deliver high power density, reduced size, excellent gain, high reliability, and process maturity. Qorvo is a leading supplier of RF products and compound semiconductor foundry services to defense primes and other global defense and aerospace customers. Qorvo is the only supplier to achieve a Manufacturing Readiness Level 10 (MRL 10) rating from the U.S. Department of Defense.
