Department of Army Ultra-wide Bandgap RF Electronics Center Fiscal Year 2022

Description

**UPDATE 8 JULY 2022: The purpose of this amendment is to incorporate security language. As a result of the amendment, Offerors who were invited to submit a full proposal based on the white paper review may revise their proposals if they deem necessary. The revised security language is as follows: The Government will conduct a scalable pre-award security review of any proposal under consideration for funding. During that review, a proposal may receive additional scrutiny based on identified national security risks. Offerors are advised that any significant national security risk may be a basis for the rejection of an otherwise awardable proposal. Also, the Army, reserves the right to enter into negotiations with a proposed awardee to incorporate research protection safeguards into an award. Acceptance of these safeguards may be required prior to any award.** The U.S. Army Research Office (ARO) is soliciting proposals for establishing a multidisciplinary research center for extreme-radio-frequency electronics (x-RF electronics) based on ultra-wide bandgap (UWBG) semiconductors and related emerging materials. The UWBG RF Electronics Center to be created will facilitate collaboration between extramural academic researchers and the Army in pursuit of a mutual goal: generating the foundational knowledge in solid-state physics, device structures, integrated circuit design, materials discovery and development, and physics-based machine learning needed to enable the next generation of RF electronics with unprecedented power, bandwidth, frequency agility, and size-weight-and-power (SWaP) requirements. This necessitates novel research that moves beyond the frequency, power and noise constraints imposed by current approaches to modeling, materials, and established device structures. The Center will provide the Army with a new ability to create advanced RF technologies across its modernization priorities for robust multi-domain operations in highly contested electromagnetic (EM) environments. This BAA consists of three main topics: Ultra-wide Bandgap (UWBG) Semiconductor Physics and Devices, UWBG Materials, and Physics-Driven Machine Learning for UWBG Materials and RF Device Development. Some topics are further divided into sub-topics. Teams are encouraged to self-organize at any scale to create a proposal to address one, several, or all of these areas as they see fit. The full Center will be selected from a set of these Teams (as separate Team awards) that together appropriately cover the full scope of the BAA. Team awards can themselves include sub-awards to one or more institutions or organizations, because the necessary expertise in addressing the numerous facets of the topics may reside within different organizations. All Team awards will collaborate and cooperate among themselves and with the Army S&T enterprise in accomplishing the research objectives. Response Dates: a. Proposers’ Day: 15 December 2020 1100-1500 Eastern Time. Virtual venue. Registration required and limited. See Amendment of the BAA for the link to register b. Whitepapers Due – 15 February 2021 no later than 4:00 PM Eastern Time. c. Selection of whitepapers for full proposal on 22 March 2021 d. Proposals Due – 1 June 2021 no later than 4:00 PM Eastern Time e. Selection of Proposal – 2 August 2021

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