August 23, 2007 — Phiar Corp., provider of metal-insulator electronics, has filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a monolithically integrated analog front end and antenna structure. Phiar’s innovation uses metal-insulator electronics instead of semiconductors to integrate antennas and analog electronic components on the same substrate. This approach promises to reduce costs and enhances the practicality of 60 GHz wireless systems that will enable multi-gigabit data transmission for the consumer electronics market.
“This patent solves a critical problem for a consumer market that is eagerly awaiting multi-gigabit wireless solutions,” said Adam Rentschler, director of business development for Phiar. “Phiar’s innovation will lower costs and enable development of wireless radios that stream multiple channels of uncompressed high-definition video content.”
Phiar says its patent-pending concept solves numerous problems by allowing local frequency conversion at the edge of each antenna array, simultaneously eliminating transmission line losses and allowing designers to place antennas in their optimal locations without increasing manufacturing costs.
Phiar has also received the Award for Small Business Innovation Research from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which serves as the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense.
“Phiar Corporation achieved innovation excellence by creating new electronic device technology that enables affordable, low-power sensor and communication operations,” said Dr. Anthony J. Tether, director of DARPA. “Using new nanotechnology-based quantum tunneling principles, Phiar’s technology offers a potential solution to the speed and power limitations of semiconductor-based devices and higher performance from existing manufacturing technologies.”
Phiar is currently involved in a DARPA II contract after successfully completing two previous DARPA contracts. The latest grant was made through DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office to fund metal-insulator transistor development. Phiar is developing a new, full product family of metal-insulator electronic devices including diodes, detectors, modulators, mixers, varactors and transistors. Phiar’s patented devices promise substantial speed advantages over semiconductor devices and can be manufactured with existing CMOS factory equipment. Phiar’s technology can be integrated on a wide range of substrates and exceeds the performance limitations of semiconductor-based devices while being less expensive to manufacture.