Atomera Enters Joint Development Agreement With IQE To Bring High-Performance, Cost-Effective RF GaN To Market

The collaboration leverages Atomera’s recently announced application of Mears Silicon Technology™ (MST®) to silicon substrates for RF GaN and IQE’s compound semiconductor epitaxy expertise. Under the agreement, the companies will collaborate to demonstrate GaN epitaxy on Atomera’s MST-enabled silicon wafers. With an initial focus on RF GaN-on-silicon applications, the work aims to demonstrate best-in-class linearity and loss for high-volume RF markets.

Atomera and IQE anticipate a multi-cycle development process, with engineering teams from both companies working together to optimize the multi-layer structure to identify the highest-performing RF material. The JDA also leaves room for the companies to expand their work, both to further refine RF GaN and to pursue other GaN use cases, including power electronics.

The project will center on the production and testing of MST-enabled GaN-on-silicon wafers, with the goal of rapidly developing the best achievable MST-enabled GaN-on-silicon material and making samples available for foundry, IDM and fabless customer engagement.