HRL Scientists Demonstrate World's First Millimeter-Wave Flexible Electronics Technology

MALIBU, Calif., July 31, 2013—HRL scientists have demonstrated the world’s first InP-based millimeter-wave flexible electronics technology. “Flexible and printable electronics have received a great deal of attention in the past decade mainly at frequencies below 1 GHz for consumer electronics and RFID (Radio-frequency identification) products. The main attributes for the technology include low-cost manufacturing through roll-to-roll processes, lightweight, mechanical reliability, and bendable for irregular surfaces. High frequency flexible/printable electronics technology is a key enabler for many demanding electronic systems such as conformal phased array radars. In order to address the paradigm shift specifically for microwave and millimeter-wave frequencies and to get similar circuit performance as a bulk semiconductor material, HRL has developed the novel technique to fabricate flexible/printable circuitry,” noted HRL Senior Research Staff Scientist Hasan Sharifi.

InP HEMT technology was utilized to demonstrate the first W-band completely flexible low-noise amplifier (LNA) with 10dB gain per stage. The researchers’ finding was presented at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS2013) in June 2013 in Seattle, WA titled “First Demonstration of W-band Millimeter-Wave Flexible Electronics”.

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HRL Laboratories, LLC, Malibu, California (www.hrl.com) is a corporate research-and-development laboratory owned by The Boeing Company and General Motors specializing in research into sensors and materials, information and systems sciences, applied electromagnetics, and microelectronics. HRL provides custom research and development and performs additional R&D contract services for its LLC member companies, the U.S. government, and other commercial companies.

MS13224 – TICR 13006

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