In May 2023, Soctera was awarded $250,000 from the Air Force Research Laboratory. The Accelerating Translation award entitled "Scaling of Thermally-Optimized Aluminum Nitride Power Amplifiers'' will expedite the rapid commercialization of Soctera's innovative power amplifier technology, focusing on the maturation of Soctera's semiconductor material at 4-inch wafer scale.
“Soctera is excited to begin this project and work with the Air Force to address the many restrictions that heat buildup impose on state-of-the-art wireless communication systems,” said Soctera CEO Austin Hickman.
Soctera’s project includes AFRL co-PI Dr. Joshua Kennedy. Josh, the team lead for Agile Electronic Materials and Processes Research Team at AFRL, has seen how heat has limited many systems within the Air Force. “For Air Force applications, high power RF amplifiers are important for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems, radar arrays, seekers, and directed energy weapons. In many of these cases the state-of-the-art is GaN HEMTs, and we are fundamentally limited by the heat build up,” said Josh.