Could China’s gallium oxide leap leave US F-22 radar 2 generations behind?
Chinese team’s semiconductor tech research combines power and memory, allowing for smaller and more powerful military electronics
Today’s Chinese fighters, from the older J-10 to the most advanced J-20 and J-35, have radars built on third-generation gallium nitride technology, giving them superior range, efficiency, and reliability over US counterparts such as the F-22, which still relies on ageing gallium arsenide-based systems.
A discovery by Wu Zhenping and his team at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, published in the journal Science Advances on February 11, has opened a new front in the semiconductor arms race.
For the first time, they have confirmed through experiments that a specific crystal phase of gallium oxide, known as kappa-gallium oxide, exhibits stable ferroelectricity at room temperature, enabling it to store data intrinsically like a memory device, while simultaneously functioning as a high-power transmitting component.