TriQuint Semiconductor, an RF product manufacturer and foundry services provider, today announced that it has fulfilled initial production orders from Northrop Grumman Corp. to support the F-35 Lightning II fire control radar system. The F-35, also referred to as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), is being developed by Lockheed Martin Corp. with primary partners Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems. The program is forecast to deliver several thousand aircraft by the mid-2030s.
TriQuint has fabricated, tested and delivered power amplifiers, other gallium arsenide (GaAs) devices and bulk acoustic wave (BAW) filters for this multi-role, multi-national aircraft’s phased-array radar system. These products support Northrop’s role in developing radar and other systems for the JSF. TriQuint’s devices are manufactured in a continually evolving portfolio of leading-edge technologies.
The JSF program is past the mid-point of a 12-year-long system development and demonstration (SDD) phase that includes a variety of application and flight readiness tests. The products supplied by TriQuint are part of the overall program’s low rate initial production (LRIP) phase that is being run in concurrence with the SDD phase; TriQuint has shipped an assortment of GaAs integrated circuits for LRIP Phases I and II.
The F-35 / JSF development program is a multi-nation effort with participants including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. Israel and Singapore are engaged in the program as part of a Security Cooperative Participation (SCP) approach.
TriQuint’s Director of Defense and Aerospace Products Marketing, Gailon Brehm, said TriQuint applied some of the company’s latest foundry processes to support Northrop Grumman design objectives for the JSF fire control system. These new processes will play an important role in successfully manufacturing and deploying this phased-array radar.
“TriQuint shipped a variety of production devices in 2008 and remains actively engaged in meeting our customer’s needs for high-quality components,” remarked Brehm. “As we ship devices and as the program moves closer to full production we expect multimillion dollar revenues. It’s exciting to be part of a process that is producing a truly superior aircraft to defend free nations across the globe.”
