Qorvo® has been selected by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to proceed with the Advanced Integration Interconnection and Fabrication Growth for Domestic State of the Art (SOTA) RF GaN program, also known as STARRY NITE, as part of the Office of Undersecretary of Defense Research & Engineering's (OUSD R&E) microelectronics roadmap.
The STARRY NITE program seeks to develop and mature domestic, open SOTA RF GaN foundries in alignment with the DOD advanced packaging ecosystem. The Qorvo team will leverage over 30 years of technology development and a long record of successfully establishing high performance, reliable GaN manufacturing technology to achieve these primary goals:
To offer secure, domestic high volume manufacturing of 90 nanometer (nm) GaN foundry processes, along with advanced interconnect features that enable high performing, innovative and compact solutions for next-generation military and commercial wireless communications systems
Qorvo is well-positioned to realize STARRY NITE's vision and ensure accessibility of 90 nm RF GaN and 90 nm GaN with advanced interconnects across the Defense Industrial Base (DIB), delivering manufacturing maturity with performance and advanced integration features such as copper bumps.
Philip Chesley, president of Qorvo's Infrastructure and Defense Products, said, "Qorvo looks forward to providing best in class advanced GaN technology that will enable high performing, reliable and compact RF solutions for future needs through the STARRY NITE prototype project."
Qorvo is a leader in providing 5G and other commercial products that require a keen understanding of today's market requirements, as well as the advanced GaN nodes and advanced interconnects needed to support/achieve those requirements. As a commercial provider for dual-use applications, Qorvo is uniquely positioned to leverage wafer volumes to drive manufacturing process control, accelerate process and reliability maturation and drive down costs for the entire DIB.
Qorvo is a leading supplier of high performance RF products and compound semiconductor foundry services to defense primes and other global defense and aerospace customers. Using the MRL concept developed by the U.S. DOD, Qorvo has achieved Manufacturing Readiness Level 10 for its GaN technology.