Chinese Radar Developments - KLJ series and others

Blitzo · Feb 6, 2016

antiterror13 said:
True, Philips HQ is not a US company, but the one was blocked by the US govt is definitely a US company ... even the main shareholder may not be Americans.

I agree with you, it won't stop China to master GaN chips implementation, it in fact will even encourage Chinese Govt to pour unlimited cash and resources for it, like it has been proved again and again

I think it is likely that the attempt to acquire that stake of Philips could have potentially had benefits for Chinese development of GaN radars and other military technologies involving semiconductors, and it was probably one of many attempts at deals by Chinese companies in recent that could have military applications.

However this specific acquisition attempt doesn't actually tell us whether it was motivated primarily or even partly by the potential military applications, and it most definitely doesn't tell us what stage of development the Chinese are at themselves (various institutes already offer some GaN based semiconductors for various military purposes including radar applications -- I'm not as familiar in regards to civilian offerings). Therefore it's probably a mistake to perceive the block of this sale as any sort of major blockage towards China's GaN development because we don't know where the Chinese are at.

What this specific acquisition attempt does tell us is that the US felt it was a risk to their national security if they sold their particular stake, so they blocked it.
Given the relative newness of GaN technology for military applications in not only the US but internationally, it made complete sense for them to block the sale.

Blitzo · Feb 6, 2016

Bltizo said:
I think this site is for the 13th institute of CETC???

There's a lot of good stuff... but I'm not sure how reliable it is. A lot of information and data on various products... including GaN modules for APARs across multiple bands... I think these are even products that they are able to produce for various systems, so is it possible that recent AESAs aboard ships and aircraft may all be GaN?

Website, anyone with knowledge on these matters or even anyone whose Chinese is good enough to translate the highly technical information, please judge the website and its various info:
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Or even just take a look at a pdf on GaN:
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So to bring back this post of mine from back in November, I posted the same thing over on CDF and Veroth, a member over there who is a professional working in the field posted a brief response.

veroth said:
Blitzo said:

I'm a bit doubtful because all the stuff they seem to be talking about looks almost too good to be true given the relative lack of information on Chinese radar advancements in the open access domain, to this level of detail.

Click to expand...

Why the skepticism? The webpage is clearly advertising products (the RF amplifiers), and the PDF file is clearly the datasheets. The whole thing is made for perspective customers. Lying should do them no good because (1) the standard practice in most industries is that the customer pays after the ordered product is delivered and is satisfactory, and (2) the customer can and must test the product before they are placed into their RF circuits.

Note that Triquint, one of the market leader in high power RF amplifiers in the US and an important supplier of said amplifiers to US military systems, also openly advertise their products. Take a look at their III-nitride line of amplifiers:
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On the actual products in the PDF, I think that while they are suitable for radar applications as advertised, they are not suitable for AESA PARs. My reason is based on the fact that they are already packaged. For the 9 to 10 GHz amplifier, the packaging size combined with the need for additional transmission lines to DC bias the amplifiers (which takes up additional room) preclude their use as the amplification array in AESA antenna arrays (grating lobes would appear). The lower frequency products seems to be ok dimension wise, but one would still benefit from using unpackaged amplifiers due to the additional margins.

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Also, if anyone is interested in Chinese academic writings on GaN for military applications, if anyone here has access to academic databases they can try doing a search for the relevant terms. I did a search a little while back and got some interesting results. Even better if one can conduct a search in Chinese rather than English, as there would likely be much more results in the original language.

SamuraiBlue · Feb 6, 2016

If I remember the original article I posted (which I can't find), I do not recall reading anything about GaN technology, the subsidiary is called Lumileds and is a LED back light manufacturer. I recall reading about it being a possible threat for ease-dropping since the LEDs are used on various mobile phones, monitors and other LED related products.
In the age of IoT anything is possible.

Brumby · Feb 6, 2016

SamuraiBlue said:
If I remember the original article I posted (which I can't find), I do not recall reading anything about GaN technology, the subsidiary is called Lumileds and is a LED back light manufacturer. I recall reading about it being a possible threat for ease-dropping since the LEDs are used on various mobile phones, monitors and other LED related products.
In the age of IoT anything is possible.

The connection was made by a NYT article.

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At the center of the committee’s concerns on the Philips deal, according to Mr. Lewis, was a little known but increasingly important advanced semiconductor material called gallium nitride. Though not a household name like silicon, gallium nitride, often referred to by its abbreviation GaN, could be used to construct a new generation of powerful and versatile microchips.

It has been used for decades in the low-energy light sources known as
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, and it features in technology as mundane as Blu-ray Disc players. But its resistance to heat and radiation give it a number of military and space applications. Gallium nitride chips are being used in radar for antiballistic missiles and in an Air Force radar system, called Space Fence, that is used to track space debris.

antiterror13 · Feb 6, 2016

SamuraiBlue said:
If I remember the original article I posted (which I can't find), I do not recall reading anything about GaN technology, the subsidiary is called Lumileds and is a LED back light manufacturer. I recall reading about it being a possible threat for ease-dropping since the LEDs are used on various mobile phones, monitors and other LED related products.
In the age of IoT anything is possible.

I read that actually the high end LED from the company is manufactured from GaN, new wonder material like Graphene

SamuraiBlue · Feb 6, 2016

Kinda interesting reading the NYT article making me wonder "Doesn't PRC have LED lighting manufacturers?" since it states that the material had been in use for decades in LEDs.

Hendrik_2000 · Feb 6, 2016

antiterror13 said:
True, Philips HQ is not a US company, but the one was blocked by the US govt is definitely a US company ... even the main shareholder may not be Americans.

I agree with you, it won't stop China from GaN chips implementation, it in fact will even encourage Chinese Govt to pour unlimited cash and resources for it, like it has been proved again and again

Right as I said before all those attempt to slow down China progress is just futile effort.

China produce 7 million graduate every year assuming 10-20% goes to engineering school. Every year China produce 700,000 engineer couple with 200,000 who goes overseas. And again assuming 40% return rate to china, we get 80000 returnee. And assuming again 10% of them goes to engineering we arrive at 8000 engineer returnee.Now assuming again 10% with advance degree we have roughly 800 advanced degree engineer!every year

That is a lot of brain power Now if you couple again with large expenditure by both government and private enterprises, There is nothing that they cannot do

So the genie is out of the bottle!

antiterror13 · Feb 6, 2016

SamuraiBlue said:
Kinda interesting reading the NYT article making me wonder "Doesn't PRC have LED lighting manufacturers?" since it states that the material had been in use for decades in LEDs.

haha, you are right, perhaps the author didn't really understand what LED is

. Actually China produce most LED lights in the world, even I have yet to see any LED lights (consumer grade) not made in China.

But this baby is a different beast, the key is advanced LED from GaN

SamuraiBlue · Feb 7, 2016

antiterror13 said:
But this baby is a different beast, the key is advanced LED from GaN

The only "advancement in the LED industry" is Blue light LED that made LED monitors and white light LED for lighting possible.I believe the high end light that discharge around 100W equivalent or higher uses GaN so all headlights for cars would fall under this section.

siegecrossbow · Feb 7, 2016

Hendrik_2000 said:
Right as I said before all those attempt to slow down China progress is just futile effort.

China produce 7 million graduate every year assuming 10-20% goes to engineering school. Every year China produce 700,000 engineer couple with 200,000 who goes overseas. And again assuming 40% return rate to china, we get 80000 returnee. And assuming again 10% of them goes to engineering we arrive at 8000 engineer returnee.Now assuming again 10% with advance degree we have roughly 800 advanced degree engineer!every year

That is a lot of brain power Now if you couple again with large expenditure by both government and private enterprises, There is nothing that they cannot do

So the genie is out of the bottle!

Another problem (that I've observed personally) is the migration of hardware jobs from the U.S. back East. Hardware jobs, unfortunately, aren't as profitable as they used to be, and most of my Grad school classmates either plan on switching to software or migrating elsewhere for job opportunities.

Chinese Radar Developments - KLJ series and others

Blitzo

Lieutenant General

Blitzo

Lieutenant General

SamuraiBlue

Captain

Brumby

Major

antiterror13

Brigadier

SamuraiBlue

Captain

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General

antiterror13

Brigadier

SamuraiBlue

Captain

siegecrossbow

General