India now makes its own GaN radar chips, after France refused to transfer the technology during the 2016 Rafale fighter jet deal. Organiser reported on 7 November that the Defence Research and Development Organisation built the indigenous capability from scratch, and the account is backed by a defence studies paper and a report in The Week. The GaN radar chips at the heart of the story power modern active electronically scanned array radars, the systems that let fighter jets, ships and ground stations track targets and resist jamming.
The refusal came during the talks for 36 Rafale jets from France’s Dassault Aviation, in a deal worth 59,000 crore rupees. India sought the gallium nitride technology under a 50 percent offset clause worth 30,000 crore rupees, which was meant to bring industrial capability into the country. France declined to share the know-how, calling it too sensitive, and the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies paper says the refusal cited the Wassenaar Arrangement, the export control regime for sensitive technology. The GaN radar chips India wanted were the core of the Rafale’s advanced radar, and the denial left India dependent on foreign suppliers.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation answered by building the capability itself. Scientists at the Solid State Physics Laboratory in Delhi worked on the materials and chip design, while the Gallium Arsenide Enabling Technology Centre in Hyderabad fabricated the circuits. On 23 March 2023, the teams cracked the code for gallium nitride monolithic microwave integrated circuits, known as MMICs, which form the transmit-receive modules at the heart of a modern radar. The GaN radar chips they produced put India among a small group of nations able to make them, alongside the United States, France, Russia, Germany, South Korea and China.
GaN radar chips and the 2023 breakthrough
The chips themselves are small and powerful. A single gallium nitride chip measuring 3.5 millimetres by 3 millimetres can deliver 30 watts and switch power 300 times faster than silicon equivalents, according to the report in The Week. The laboratory in Delhi works in a 1,300 square metre clean room, and the circuits passed weeks of rigorous testing before the success was confirmed. Suma Varughese, the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s Director General for Micro Electronic Devices, led the work. The GaN radar chips that came out of the programme now underpin Indian radars, satellites and electronic warfare systems.
Gallium nitride matters because it handles heat and power far better than silicon or the older gallium arsenide used in earlier radars. It lets a radar see further, resist hostile jamming, and keep working at temperatures where silicon would fail. The technology sits behind the Uttam radar for the Tejas fighter and the Virupaaksha radar being adapted for the Su-30MKI upgrade, with initial integration planned for 84 aircraft. The GaN radar chips also support the RISAT radar imaging satellites, each of which carries more than 7,000 chips, with 5,760 of them made in India.
The Rafale itself still flies with French radar. The 36 jets use the Thales RBE2 active electronically scanned array radar, which is built on gallium arsenide rather than gallium nitride, and the radar and avionics are proprietary to Dassault and Thales. India has not fitted its Rafales with the indigenous radar, because French intellectual property rights block changes to the aircraft’s radar and avionics without approval. The GaN radar chips India built cannot simply be fitted to the Rafale, and the same approvals govern the integration of Indian weapons such as the Astra Mk-1 missile and the Smart Anti-Airfield Weapon.
GaN radar chips and the Rafale question
The supply chain behind the achievement is still thin. The Solid State Physics Laboratory and the Hyderabad centre have established limited production of gallium nitride on silicon carbide devices of up to 150 watts, along with X-band MMICs, but domestic output remains small and private firms such as Agnit Semiconductors are only now entering the field. The Centre for Joint Warfare Studies paper says India’s physical supply chain for these chips remains highly vulnerable, even though the design work has been mastered. The GaN radar chips exist, but making them at scale is the next problem to solve.
The episode has become a case study in how a refusal can force self-reliance. India asked for the technology in 2016, was turned down, and spent seven years building it instead. The result is a domestic capability that feeds the Tejas, the Su-30MKI upgrade, the RISAT satellites and the surveillance programmes that need thousands of these circuits. The GaN radar chips were born of a denial in the Rafale talks, and they now sit at the centre of India’s plans for its own radars.