April 19, 2005 – Raytheon Co.’s Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) has been awarded a three-year, $26.9 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contract with a potential award value of $59.4 million if all program options are exercised. The program will optimize and refine the use of gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductors for use in military and civilian systems. Raytheon is the prime contractor, having teamed with Cree Inc. on this leading edge technology.

“Teaming with Cree is all about speed — combining the capabilities of the scientists at both companies will make this technology available to the warfighter much sooner,” said Joe Smolko, Raytheon program manager for the WBGS-RF (Wide Bandgap Semiconductors for Radio Frequency) applications program.

GaN is capable of providing 10 times the output power of similarly sized GaAs components. It enables systems solutions that are smaller, lighter, more efficient and more cost effective than can be realized with current technology and is the enabling building block for Raytheon’s high-power and wideband strategy.

The Raytheon portion of the work will be conducted at Raytheon RF Components in Andover, Mass., while Cree’s portion of the work will be conducted in Durham, NC and its Santa Barbara Technology Center in CA.