News: Suppliers
16 February 2026
Nitride Global, USLLC and Axiom Space awarded NASA SBIR grant
Nitride Global Inc of Wichita, KS, USA says that — along with its partners United Semiconductors LLC (USLLC) of Los Alamitos, CA, USA (which since 2005 has been supplying the US defense sector and national laboratories with critical substrates) and Axiom Space Inc of Houston, TX, USA — it has been selected for a NASA-funded Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant ‘Physical Vapor Deposition Reactor Design and Validation for In-Space Manufacturing of Aluminum Nitride Single Crystals’. The project will advance the development of a next-generation physical vapor deposition (PVD) reactor for producing high-purity aluminium nitride (AlN) crystals in micro-gravity, a key step toward enabling large-scale space-based semiconductor manufacturing.
The ultrawide-bandgap (UWBG) semiconductor AlN has superior thermal conductivity, operating temperature range, radiation resistance and electrical breakdown strength compared to silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN). However, terrestrial AlN crystal growth faces challenges such as high dislocation densities, point defects and size limitations that hinder its widespread adoption in high-performance power electronics and optoelectronic applications.
Micro-gravity provides a unique environment to overcome these barriers by:
- eliminating thermal convection, ensuring uniform mass flux and reducing defects;
- minimizing thermal gradients, decreasing stress-induced dislocations; and
- accelerating seed development, enabling the production of ultra-high-purity AlN substrates that could advance wafer quality by multiple generations in months rather than decades.
During Phase I, the project team — led by USLLC — developed and tested a proof-of-concept PVD reactor capable of achieving a crystal growth temperatures of 2800–3200°C while operating at only 250–400W and weighing less than 700g. The compact system demonstrated feasibility for integration within the International Space Station (ISS) environment, where power, size and thermal constraints are significant.
In Phase II, the consortium will develop and validate a flight-ready reactor prototype for deployment aboard the ISS. Objectives include:
- refining reactor design to meet ISS mid-deck locker integration requirements;
- conducting AlN crystal growth optimization through modeling and empirical testing; and
- completing NASA’s Safety Review and securing payload integration approval for future on-orbit experiments.
The enhanced system will also serve as a high-temperature materials research platform, supporting studies of silicon carbide, oxide crystals, and other advanced materials relevant to in-space manufacturing and next-generation semiconductor technologies.
“This collaboration represents a major step toward realizing the vision of in-space semiconductor fabrication,” says Nitride Global’s CEO Mahyar Khosravi. “By harnessing the advantages of micro-gravity and advanced thermal systems engineering, we aim to help establish the US as a leader in ultra-high-performance material production for both terrestrial and orbital applications.”
The project aligns with NASA’s broader goals of fostering sustainable, commercial in-space manufacturing, advancing R&D of AlN-based semiconductors for extreme space environments, and leveraging low-Earth orbit (LEO) platforms such as the ISS and future Axiom Space stations to accelerate technology readiness for Earth and beyond.
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