Recent news shows great promise for the emergence of GaN device technology. TriQuint Semiconductor (www.triquint.com), for example, showed its belief in the future of GaN technology with the largest order for GaN wafers ever placed with materials supplier IQE plc (www.iqep.com). TriQuint plans to support both commercial and military customers with new GaN-based integrated circuits (ICs).

Separately, Merrimac Industries (www.merrimacind.com) announced a working arrangement with GaN pioneer Nitronex Corporation (www.nitronex.com) to purchase GaN transistor die. The unpackaged transistors will be used to design and fabricate compact Power Amplifier Modules (PAMs) using Merrimac's proprietary multilayer Multi-Mix® Microtechnology approach for constructing compact, three-dimensional circuit designs. As with TriQuint, Merrimac plans to serve both commercial and military customers with their GaN-based products. With the industry's largest trade show, the IEEE MTT-S, scheduled for this June in Atlanta, this may only be the "tip of the iceberg" in terms of news and announcements on GaN.