SiGe BiCMOS and RF CMOS
Our world-class SiGe BiCMOS and RF CMOS technologies enable many high speed consumer applications including: wireless transceivers and front-end modules, TV tuners and other set-top box and satellite receiver components, optical networking components, and radio transceivers in cell phone, WLAN, WiMAX and GPS devices. By utilizing our RF technology, our customers acquire best-in-class performance very cost effectively, thereby providing the highest ROI possible of any alternate solution.
We offer SiGe BiCMOS process geometries at 0.35-, 0.18- and 0.13-micron. Although the process comes with many options like deep trench, ultra thick metal, deep N-Well, and MIM caps ranging from 1fF/μm2 to 5.6fF/μm2, the process is also available with a complimentary process allowing for a vertical PNP on NPN. These offerings achieve noise and power performance that is competitive with GaAs while offering as much as 40% lower die cost. Our 0.13μm SiGe BiCMOS process, built in both our US and Israeli fabs, offers for the first time, SiGe with a Cu back-end. This process shrinks die size while maintaining the noise, power consumption and output power benefit of SiGe.
We have pushed our SiGe performance, delivering design kits for a 260GHz SiGe BiCMOS process, the highest performance BiCMOS available in the industry. This offering targets optical networks, automotive collision avoidance radar, phased array radar and other mmWave products. We continue to expand our technology with recent additions of an SOI Switch and SiGe power amplifier process with deep-silicon-via. These processes have demonstrated performance comparable to that of expensive GaAs while affording levels of integration not otherwise possible.
Our RF CMOS offering is desirable for the most cost-sensitive RF devices. Our 0.18- and 0.13-micron CMOS options enable mixed-signal and digital functions on the same chip further reducing cost of the complete system. Our leadership SiGe BiCMOS and RF CMOS technology integrated with high-density CMOS provides the industry's best cost and performance-optimized RF solution and meets our customers' requirements for a fast and efficient RF design flow.
We have expanded our already unique offering of complementary-BiCMOS foundry processes in both 0.35μm and 0.18μm nodes. The new processes include a high-voltage version with 14V NPN and PNP and a high speed version with PNP Ft of 17GHz prototyping with initial customers. These technologies are used in applications such as line drivers for DSL and HomePlug and hard-disk drive pre-Amps.
