In short: The ORanGaN project — part of DSIT's Future RAN competition — has established a complete UK pathway from gallium nitride (GaN) wafer to packaged RF power amplifier device. The consortium prototyped ~7W power amplifier chips and created a UK-specific Process Design Kit, attracting interest from communications, defence, and space sectors.
Key Takeaways
- Complete UK supply chain demonstrated — from GaN wafer fabrication through to packaged device, removing dependence on overseas semiconductor sources for critical RF components
- Process Design Kit enables UK chip designers — the PDK gives British companies the tools to design GaN RF chips for manufacture on UK foundry processes
- Cross-sector demand already evident — interest from defence, space, and communications sectors confirms that sovereign GaN capability has value well beyond 5G
In a nutshell
Why GaN Matters for 5G
Every 5G base station contains radio frequency power amplifiers — the components that take digital signals and amplify them to the power levels needed for transmission — and the performance of these amplifiers directly affects coverage, capacity, energy efficiency, and heat dissipation.
Gallium nitride (GaN) has emerged as the preferred semiconductor material for these amplifiers. Compared to the silicon LDMOS technology used in previous generations, GaN operates at higher frequencies, delivers more power from smaller devices, and runs more efficiently; for Open RAN architectures — where radio units need to be compact, efficient, and cost-effective — GaN is increasingly essential.
The problem, however, is that the global supply chain for GaN RF devices is concentrated in a small number of overseas foundries. The UK has recognised expertise in compound semiconductors, particularly through the cluster in South Wales, but at the time of writing lacked a complete pathway from raw wafer to finished, packaged RF device within UK borders. That gap is what ORanGaN set out to close.
What ORanGaN Built
The ORanGaN project, funded through DSIT's Future RAN competition, brought together four organisations to address this dependency.
Inex Microtechnology provided GaN wafer fabrication capability. The Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult — based in Newport, South Wales — contributed design expertise and characterisation facilities. Custom Interconnect handled the packaging stage, assembling bare semiconductor die into physical packages suitable for circuit boards. Viper RF brought RF design expertise and application knowledge.
Together, the consortium achieved three critical milestones. First, they created a UK Process Design Kit (PDK) for GaN RF chips — the set of design rules, device models, and layout templates that chip designers need to create circuits for a specific manufacturing process. Having a UK-specific PDK means that British companies can design GaN RF components confident they can be manufactured domestically, which is a fundamentally important enabler.
Second, they prototyped power amplifier chips delivering approximately 7 watts of output power — a meaningful power level for the small cell and distributed radio unit applications that Open RAN deployments require in large quantities.
Third, and most importantly, they demonstrated the complete flow from wafer to packaged device without leaving the UK. Every step, from semiconductor fabrication through to a finished component ready for integration into a radio unit, can now be performed by UK companies using UK facilities.
Cross-Sector Interest
The project has attracted interest beyond telecommunications, which strengthens the business case considerably. Defence applications for GaN power amplifiers include radar, electronic warfare, and military communications — all areas where supply chain security is a national priority. Space applications include satellite communications and earth observation payloads, where GaN's efficiency and power density offer significant advantages.
This cross-sector demand is important because it addresses one of the key trade-offs in domestic semiconductor manufacturing: a foundry serving only telecoms might struggle to achieve viable volumes, but one serving telecoms, defence, and space has a much broader customer base and consequently a more sustainable commercial footing.
The Strategic Picture
The UK's National Semiconductor Strategy, published in 2023, identified compound semiconductors as an area of existing UK strength worth protecting. ORanGaN is a practical demonstration of that strategy in action — not a research paper or a roadmap, but working gallium nitride produced through a UK supply chain.
For the Open RAN ecosystem specifically, domestic access to RF power amplifier technology reduces a critical dependency. As the UK continues to diversify its telecoms supply chain away from a small number of large vendors, sovereign access to the fundamental components inside every radio unit is a strategic advantage that few other nations can claim — and whilst the volumes are modest at this stage, the pathway from prototype to production is now established, which is ultimately what matters.