The US Army just handed a loss-making chip company a job the domestic supply chain cannot currently do. Navitas Semiconductor was picked for ALATTIS, a prototype program to develop 10 kV silicon carbide power devices on American soil.
The assignment includes developing and validating a domestic manufacturing process, putting Navitas’s engineering experience to work on a capability Washington wants built at home.
The company’s GeneSiC line traces back through 6.5 kV thyristors in 2010 and 10–15 kV PiN diodes in 2012. Navitas has worked at these voltages before. ALATTIS asks it to build a different device and establish the process for making it domestically.
Washington wants the chips made here
Navitas sells power semiconductors into AI data centers, grid infrastructure, and industrial electrification. Its GeneSiC portfolio spans 650 V to 6.5 kV, while the Army project targets devices rated at 10 kV or higher.
The appeal sits in both the design and the supply chain. Navitas plans to build the new devices using its patented trench-assisted planar architecture. Its manufacturing supply chain is anchored in the US, where the Army wants to establish production.
Navitas also has more than 300 patents issued or pending across its business. That portfolio is part of the company’s pitch, though the count alone says little about whether the new manufacturing process will succeed.
“This program enables Navitas to extend its leadership beyond SiC MOSFETs by developing next-generation 10 kV SiC IGBTs built on our unique, patented trench-assisted planar (TAP) architecture.
Siddarth Sundaresan, Navitas Semiconductor
Army backing without a price tag
No financial details of the project were disclosed. That matters because AI demand remains the major potential driver for the stock, rather than military hardware.
The Army’s selection gives Navitas something useful to point to while it reports quarterly losses. But investors have no disclosed project value to weigh against those losses, and the company is also tangled in a patent dispute with Wolfspeed, a rival in silicon carbide.
That dispute sits awkwardly beside the patent portfolio Navitas promotes. The engineering record helps explain why the Army chose it; the financial record and patent fight help explain why the award leaves plenty for shareholders to worry about.
ALATTIS is a prototype project, running through iterative design, fabrication, and testing. Winning the assignment gets Navitas into the lab. Producing devices reliably is the work ahead.
The bet stretches beyond AI
The Army’s competitive evaluation gives investors another reason to look at Navitas beyond its role in data centers. A government customer chose the company to tackle a specific gap in American semiconductor manufacturing.
That is a stronger starting point than a broad prediction about future chip demand. The opportunity has a defined buyer, a voltage target, and a domestic manufacturing requirement. The commercial payoff remains harder to judge without financial terms or a finished production process.
Navitas has spent years building expertise in high-voltage silicon carbide. The Army has given that expertise a new assignment, while quarterly losses and a patent dispute make the wait for a payoff more expensive.
