Compound Semiconductor catapult expands across the UK
The UK’s Compound Semiconductor Applications (CSA) Catapult is expanding across the UK to Bristol, the North East and Scotland.
The CSA Catapult will open a £2.5m Future Telecoms Hub at the Bristol and Bath Science Park later this year with test equipment to optimise the performance of telecoms hardware and to develop new and advanced devices.
Driven by the growth of 5G networks and the adoption of next-generation technologies such as AI and the Internet of Things, the telecoms hardware market is forecast to grow in the coming years — the global telecom equipment market accounted for $538.9 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $967.9 billion by 2030, with a considerable CAGR of 6.9%.
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CSA Catapult will also establish a presence in the North East, where there is a cluster of companies working on telecoms, satellite communications and defence technologies. Based at NETPark in Sedgefield, County Durham, CSA Catapult North East will work with companies in the area as a neutral convener. It will facilitate market adoption of new compound semiconductor-based technologies, and build supply chains in telecoms, satellite communications and defence.
CSA Catapult North East will offer direct digital access to the prototyping capabilities in Newport, reducing the time and cost to produce advanced semiconductor modules to serve these markets.
The Catapult has also entered into a partnership agreement to deliver a co-ordinated programme with the Satellite Applications Catapult to help support the cluster’s ambitions for growth and will have a presence at the Space Enterprise Lab.
The CSA Scotland activity will develop high power electronics support in Scotland at the University of Strathclyde’s Technology Innovation Centre in Glasgow.
CSA Scotland will draw on the considerable expertise of Strathclyde University and the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS), offering direct digital access to CSA Catapult facilities in South Wales, allowing companies to rapidly design and prototype advanced power electronic modules for these markets.
“CSA Catapult’s purpose is to deliver long-term benefit to the UK economy and accelerate UK economic growth in industries where applying compound semiconductors creates a competitive advantage,” said Martin McHugh, Chief Executive Officer of CSA Catapult.
“Expanding across the UK means we can support more companies and bring more products to market through our technology expertise, supply chain creation and building compound semiconductor clusters. Setting up new centres in Bristol, Scotland and the North East will allow us to grow the ecosystem to support these new and emerging technologies in the UK.
“We will collaborate with universities, start-ups, and larger companies to build new UK-based supply chains in telecoms hardware. We want to support and attract companies leading R&D in the UK. These critical markets, using compound semiconductors, will create significant jobs and growth in the future.”
The initial focus at the Future Telecoms Hub will be on improving the performance of power amplifiers through load pull testing and design optimisation. Collaborative research projects with Cardiff University and the University of Bristol will also be undertaken at the Future Telecoms Hub.
CSA Catapult is working on several telecoms hardware supply chain projects in the UK such as ORanGaN and Secure5G.
The Secure 5G project is building a flexible platform that will enable companies to roll out and maintain their own quantum-safe private networks, with targeted applications for Industry 4.0, mobile edge computing (MEC), the Internet of Things (IoT) and highly secure environments, such as defence.
The ORanGaN project is looking to develop a sovereign UK supply chain, manufacturing processes and packaging solutions for radio frequency gallium nitride (RF-GaN) devices that are critical to 5G communications systems electronics hardware.
“The opening of our Future Telecoms Hub is a significant milestone in the Catapult’s journey as we expand our activities across the UK,” said McHugh. “Bristol has an established network of innovative companies and research institutions located within and around the city, as well as strong links with partners across the Western Gateway, so it was a natural fit for us to place our future telecoms capability here.
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