Eridan Communications

Eridan Communications, founded in 2013, is a developer of radio frequency (RF) communication equipment aimed at advancing the path to 5G. The company was co-founded by three engineers with PhDs: Doug Kirkpatrick, Dubravko Babić, and the late Earl McCune. The founding vision combined McCune's extensive experience in polar transmitters, Babić's expertise in Gallium Nitride (GaN), and Kirkpatrick's strategic insight into the potential of merging these technologies. Kirkpatrick, the CEO, has a background that includes serving as Chief Scientist at DARPA and as a venture capitalist. McCune, who passed away in 2020, was a prolific inventor and serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, with a career focus on energy-efficient wireless communications. Babić leads the company's Croatian operations.

Eridan's core business revolves around its MIRACLE (Millimeter-wave RAdio for Communications, Localization, and sensing) RF Front End Module. This transceiver is built on a patented, direct polar switching architecture using Gallium Nitride, which differentiates it from traditional linear amplifier-based systems. The primary benefit of this technology is a significant reduction in power consumption, requiring 5-10 times less power to transmit the same amount of data. The system's design also results in a cleaner signal, which allows more data to be encoded in the same bandwidth, potentially doubling the data throughput. This efficiency translates to smaller, lighter, and less expensive equipment that does not need specialized power sources or large heat sinks, potentially reducing installation costs by a factor of 3-5x.

The company targets telecom equipment manufacturers as its primary clients, providing the MIRACLE module as a component for systems like small cells and Massive MIMO for 5G networks. The modules, roughly the size of a paperback book, are designed with OpenRAN standard interfaces, allowing for easier integration into multi-vendor network architectures. Beyond telecommunications, Eridan's technology has applications in satellite communications, IoT, defense, and public safety, where power efficiency, a wide tuning range (600 MHz to 4.2 GHz), and reduced equipment size are critical. The business model includes selling the MIRACLE module as a subsystem to OEMs and a complete Small Cell Radio Unit directly to enterprise customers and municipal operators. The company, with offices in Sunnyvale, California, and Zagreb, Croatia, has secured significant funding through venture capital, including a $46 million Series B round, and government grants like a $36.8 million award from the CHIPS & Science Act to scale production.

Keywords: 5G radio, RF transceiver, Gallium Nitride (GaN), wireless connectivity, telecommunications equipment, MIRACLE module, direct polar architecture, energy-efficient radio, OpenRAN, small cells, Massive MIMO, IoT connectivity, satellite communications, defense communications, spectrum efficiency, wireless infrastructure, software-defined radio, radio frequency front end, power amplifier, wireless transmission