Thursday, August 27, 2009

Raytheon racks up a $7M DARPA deal for better chips

By Rodney H. Brown

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The Office of Naval Research has handed Raytheon Co. a $7 million follow-on DARPA contract for work on high-performance compound semiconductors, according to the defense technology giant.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency award is a Phase 2 contract intended to fund Raytheon’s focus on improving compound semiconductor and silicon complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) transistors when they are created on the same silicon wafer. Raytheon (NYSE: RTN) has labeled the project the Compound Semiconductor Materials on Silicon (COSMOS) program.

Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems in Tewksbury will be performing the research, officials said. In Phase 1, the Raytheon IDS-led team showed that high-performance compound semiconductor devices can be directly grown on silicon substrates and integrated with silicon CMOS transistors on the same substrate.

Raytheon IDS is partnering with Raytheon Systems Ltd. of Glenrothes, Scotland; Soitec of Bernin, France; Teledyne Scientific Imaging Co. of Thousand Oaks, Calif.; MIT; Paradigm Research LLC in Windham, N.H.; IQE in Bethlehem, Pa.; and the Silicon Valley Technology Center based in San Jose, Calif.

In June, IDS landed two contracts for the Aegis weapons system that added up to more than $16 million.

Waltham-based Raytheon, with 72,000 employees, reported a 2008 net income of $1.7 billion on revenue of $23.2 billion.