Domestic researchers are developing core components of the AESA radar and high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which are equivalent to the brains of a fighter jet, taking a step closer to achieving independence in defense technology.

The National Research Council for Science and Technology DMC (Defense Semiconductor) Convergence Research Group announced on the 8th that it had developed gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor transmit/receive monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) technology for the first time in Korea.

The AESA radar mounted on the latest fighter jets uses a semiconductor transmit/receive module with a monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) that the research team successfully developed to detect and track targets by adjusting the phase and amplitude of the signal.

The research team successfully developed a switch integrated circuit technology for transmitters and receivers in 2020 and a power amplifier integrated circuit technology for X-band radar transmitters and receivers last year.

This achievement is a single front-end integrated circuit technology for X-band radar transmitter and receiver that integrates a high-power amplifier, a low-noise amplifier, and a switch MMIC into a single chip.

In addition, the research team explained that the gallium nitride-based transmit/receive MMIC successfully developed this time can also be applied to the high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) antenna, which is the main system of satellite payloads.>
This is because MMIC can also be applied to the transmit/receive module, which is a component that is responsible for transmitting and receiving antenna signals.

This is expected to greatly contribute to the miniaturization and weight reduction of satellite transmission/reception modules based on excellent power characteristics and high efficiency characteristics.

The gallium nitride-based transmit/receive single front-end MMIC developed by the research team is a technology secured only by advanced countries overseas, and in the case of domestically secured technology, there were no development performance results using overseas or domestic foundries.

The research team predicted that the transmit/receive MMIC developed through domestic design and manufacturing will be a competitive product that can replace the transmit/receive MMIC market that currently relies entirely on imports.

The researchers' X-band single front-end MMIC can achieve 36 dB of transmit gain, 19 W of output power, 28% transmit efficiency, 38 dB of receive gain, and 2.8 dB or less of receive noise figure in the 1.5 GHz bandwidth band.

Transmission gain, transmission power, and reception gain are world-class, and reception noise figure and transmission efficiency are equivalent or higher.

The research team stated that they were able to achieve this result with the research know-how they have accumulated over the past 20 years in designing and manufacturing compound semiconductor devices.

In particular, it is evaluated that the company has laid the foundation for localizing gallium nitride integrated circuit components for the military sector, which had previously relied on overseas foundries and imports, by being the first in Korea to design and manufacture integrated circuits on its own.

ETRI DMC (Defense Semiconductor) Convergence Research Group Director Jong-won Lim said, “We have secured world-class X-band gallium nitride single-chip technology for the first time in Korea with our own design and process technology. He said, “Through self-reliance in defense technology, we will be able to actively respond to export regulations on small and medium-sized enterprises and satellite environmental verification.”

The results developed by the research team are at the prototype stage.

In the future, we plan to support commercialization through research on space environment testing for SAR satellites as well as military radars by improving the performance, reliability, and yield of MMIC.

This achievement was made possible through the National Research Council of Science and Technology’s convergence research project, ‘Development of a platform for self-reliance in key semiconductor components for defense weapon systems.’

A total of 17 institutions, including ETRI, the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, and the Nano Convergence Technology Institute, participated.