Chinese Radar Developments - KLJ series and others

Totoro said:

What actual indications do we have of GaN arrays in China?
Are there mentions of those in chinese media? Which?
Are there mentions of those aetospace industry publications? Which?
Are there mentions from the PLA itself? Which?
Most telling, are there mentions of such tech used in export model radars? (Perhaps at one of more recent zhuhai shows)

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在2020年的珠海航展上，14所推出了多波段、全谱系地面情报雷达“灵动”家族，该家族包括YLC-8E型、SLC-7型L波段多功能地基防空雷达、YLC-18A型S波段警戒雷达、YLC-12型C波段中低空多功能雷达等产品，这4款雷达覆盖UHF、L、S、C等波段。根据展会上透露的信息，“灵动”家族中的YLC-8E、SLC-7、YLC-12等雷达悉数采用第三代半导体材料，也就是我们常说的氮化镓。此外，亮相本次航展的SLC-2E武器定位雷达同样采用了氮化镓技术。

also, look for YLC-16 radar panel in last Zhuhai show

Totoro said:

What actual indications do we have of GaN arrays in China?
Are there mentions of those in chinese media? Which?
Are there mentions of those aetospace industry publications? Which?
Are there mentions from the PLA itself? Which?
Most telling, are there mentions of such tech used in export model radars? (Perhaps at one of more recent zhuhai shows)

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Yes they've offered GaN arrays for export for at least the last 2 years.
(Neither of these pics are from Zhuhai 2022)

Thanks. Have there been any small form, high density module arrays advertised?

Maybe GaN maturity has reached the point below being exotic and expensive. My phone charger is made of GaN.

Totoro said:

Thanks. Have there been any small form, high density module arrays advertised?

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Like what, fighter fire control radars?
Not that I'm aware.
We are pretty lucky that they even acknowledged GaN on those two particular products.
From what I recall at Zhuhai Airshow in 2022 last year I'm pretty sure they didn't really advertise GaN for these same radar systems.

Which is to say, going forwards chances are we won't know whether a radar is GaN or not.


As Taxiya says, I don't think it's necessarily that exotic anymore.

There are non cetc domestic gan producers that have claimed that they have supplied chinese military and space program. I would be shocked if their new aesa radar aren't using gan modules when the ev industry are going to be using them in large numbers.

The main difference of these semiconductors is the wafer production. Once you can mass-produce pure GaN wafer, the rest of the procedure is almost the same as previous generations. GaN components are now used in civilian applications, so it should be available for large scale military applications as well.

I remember reading one option of the next gen semiconductor is diamond. If someone can produce single crystal pure diamond wafer, it has good properties such as high temp resistance, etc.

kurutoga said:

The main difference of these semiconductors is the wafer production. Once you can mass-produce pure GaN wafer, the rest of the procedure is almost the same as previous generations. GaN components are now used in civilian applications, so it should be available for large scale military applications as well.

I remember reading one option of the next gen semiconductor is diamond. If someone can produce single crystal pure diamond wafer, it has good properties such as high temp resistance, etc.

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I thought graphene for next gen semiconductor was declared as a dead end. Lots of intentional and unintentional misleading information out there though I'm sure.

taxiya said:

Maybe GaN maturity has reached the point below being exotic and expensive. My phone charger is made of GaN.

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Well GaN is different when it is used in military and civilian

Blitzo said:

Like what, fighter fire control radars?
Not that I'm aware.

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Yes, like fighter radars. The US, for example has a TPS-77 radar with GaN since 2018 or so, israeli ELTA has some similar GaN radar. Those are both mobile tactical air surveillance radars for the air defense network. Yet, in these years since then, no one came out with even mentioning that they're working on a GaN based fighter radar. Could it be it still requires a lot of additonal effort, on top of getting GaN to work on larger arrays? Maybe the cooling requirements are still not solved for the crowded space in fighter noses?