Military Embedded Systems

Power-amp drive for high output, efficiency to continue with DARPA + MixComm agreement

News

March 17, 2021

Gerd Altmann/Pixabay

CHATHAM, N.J. Millimeter-wave (mmWave) developer MixComm has won an award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to fund research into and development of high-performance, silicon-based mmWave power amplifiers (PAs) aimed at enabling new solutions for the 5G and satellite-communications industries.

According to the terms of the one-year, $497 million award, says Tim Hancock, program manager for the DARPA effort, the so-called pre-decisional study with MixComm is intended to try and "simultaneously push the bandwidth, efficiency, and linearity of mmWave power amplifiers. This has direct applicability to 5G."