STARKVILLE, Miss. (USA), February 5, 2003 – SemiSouth Laboratories, Inc., a leading developer of silicon carbide discrete transistors, diodes, and merchant epitaxy, announced today two or more new DoD SBIR Phase I contract wins.

In the 1^st contract, monitored by the Office of Naval Research, SemiSouth Laboratories, Inc. is developing high-current, and high-voltage SiC diodes for power rectification to meet new needs in on-board ship energy conversion.  William A. Draper, SiC product development engineer, commented that “SiC opens up new possibilities in MW power switching applications for both DoD and commercial applications.  What has limited development to date is the ability to scale devices up to large current (over 10 A) with acceptable cost and yield.  SemiSouth has innovative material and design- based technology which we are examining as a promising solution to this roadblock.”

In the second contract, monitored by Air Force Research Laboratory, SemiSouth is looking at insertion of SiC RF transistors into near-term RADAR applications.  J.B. Casady, President and CTO of SemiSouth, stated that “We are excited about the possibilities of this contract to explore proprietary SemiSouth technology as a way to accelerate the technology readiness of SiC for several key near-term RADAR system programs.  Additionally, this represents the 8^th DoD contract in our first 18 months of operations, and we are very proud of the strong faith shown in our technology by DoD sponsors.  We are continuing to experience rapid growth in technology development, and are attracting top-flight talent to the company.”