DARPAÂ November 23, 2022
Technologies for Heat Removal in Electronics at the Device Scale (THREADS) aims to overcome the thermal limits inherent to internal circuitry operations in general, and to critical power-amplifying functions specifically. THREADS targets thermal management challenges at the transistor level. Central to this effort will be reducing the thermal resistance involved in dissipating internal heat without degrading performance or increasing the footprint of the transistors key to advancing radar capabilities. Wide bandgap transistors, such as gallium nitride (GaN), were developed specifically to improve output density in power amplifiers and further order-of-magnitude increase in power output is possible in GaN, but it can’t be realized in sustained operation today due to excessive waste heat. They are looking at increasing the range of radar by a factor of 2x to 3x. The work under THREADS in overcoming thermal limits can help realize robust, high power density transistors that operate near their fundamental electronic limit. A Proposers Day for THREADS is scheduled for Nov. 30, 2022, with abstracts due by Dec. 22, 2022. BAA …read more.
Credit: DARPA