SBIR-STTR Award

Carbon Nanotube Based Monolithic Millimeter-wave Integrated Circuits
Award last edited on: 9/28/21

Sponsored Program
STTR
Awarding Agency
DOD : Army
Total Award Amount
$1,149,959
Award Phase
2
Solicitation Topic Code
A18B-T004
Principal Investigator
Christopher Rutherglen

Company Information

Carbonics Inc

4640 Admiralty Way #1015
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292
   (608) 262-3863
   N/A
   www.carbonicsinc.com

Research Institution

University of Southern California

Phase I

Contract Number: W911NF-19-P-0029
Start Date: 12/25/18    Completed: 7/1/19
Phase I year
2019
Phase I Amount
$149,999
The Key to further improving the data rate in data communication while minimizing the power consumption is to improve the linearity of a power amplifiers in the system. Carbon Nanotube (CNT) offer intrinsically linear behavior, but to realize advanced linearity in a practical device requires high quality CNT material, and a fabrication process that can take the full advantage of the superior properties of CNTs. Carbon Technology, Inc has already made significant progress in CNT material synthesis and device fabrication process development suitable for such amplifiers. In this project, CNT transistors will be fabricated using high quality, semiconductor enriched, CVD grown material using a new fabrication process developed specifically to optimize linearity. The dielectric layer in FETs is critical in realizing the superior linearity possible from CNT devices where the doping profile is critical for the performance. The Company will expand upon techniques pioneered by Prof. Franklin's group at Duke where carefully controlled dielectric film deposition is used to engineer the specific Schottky barrier height needed to deliver linear operation. The goal of this project is to demonstrate CNT transistors with higher linearity than any existing technology while developing a process which can be readily adapted for volume manufacturing.

Phase II

Contract Number: W911NF-20-C-0017
Start Date: 11/18/19    Completed: 11/19/21
Phase II year
2020
Phase II Amount
$999,960
Carbonics, Inc. is the only small business entity that is razor-focused on developing and commercializing wafers-scale carbon nanotube (CNT) based RF products for mmWave communications that can outperform incumbent semiconductor high frequency technologies (GaAs & RF-CMOS). Our STTR Phase I accomplishments exceeded all expectations, setting a new world record for CNT FET RF technology (fT > 100 GHz). Our proposed solution and approach in Phase II is to build upon our Phase 1 momentum as shown from the Figure 1 and continue to develop the technology by (a) continue developing our wafer-scale CNT ZEBRA alignment improvements (Task 1) (b) continue CNT device T-gate improvements (Task 2), (c) develop & test a MMIC all integrated 2-stage amplifier (Task 3 & 4) (d) continue an active benchmark effort (Task 5) to assist in first product insertion towards Phase III with our strategic DOD prime contractor.