RFMD Bags Air Force Contract Worth $9.7 Mln

(RTTNews) - RF Micro Devices Inc. (RFMD), a manufacturer of high-performance radio frequency solutions, Tuesday, said it received an air force contract worth $9.7 million from the Manufacturing and Industrial Technologies Directorate within the Air Force Research Laboratory ,AFRL. As per the agreement, RFMD will transfer and produce a 0.14 micron Gallium Nitride (GaN) monolithic microwave integrated circuit or MMIC technology which will be scaled to 6-inch diameter wafers using the company's 6-inch GaN-on-Silicon Carbide (SiC) manufacturing line. With this contract, RFMD will be able to expand its technology capabilities beyond 100GHz and will provide a new class of affordable power MMICs for defense applications such as radar and military communications, and also for commercial applications such as cable TV networking, microwave back haul and cellular infrastructure. Strategy Analytics, an industrial analyst firm predicts GaN microelectronics market to triple to $334 million by 2017.