Peregrine semiconductor and IBM jointly
developing new RF CMOS
Peregrine Semiconductor has signed an exclusive joint development
agreement with IBM for the development and manufacture of
future generations of Peregrine's patented UltraCMOS silicon-on-sapphire
(SOS) process technology, the industry's radio frequency
complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (RF CMOS) process.
When fully qualified, IBM will manufacture UltraCMOS RF
ICs for Peregrine in the jointly developed 180-nanometer
process at IBM's 200mm semiconductor manufacturing facility
in Burlington, Vermont. Peregrine's UltraCMOS technology
delivers good RF performance and monolithic integration
for high-growth applications such as the RF front-end of
mobile phones and multi-mode, multi-band mobile wireless
devices, broadband communications including 4G LTE equipment
and base stations; mobile DTV/CATV RF signal conditioning;
and space satellite systems.
IBM adds Peregrine's UltraCMOS technology to its advanced
semiconductor processing capability. This marks the first
commercial use of 200mm (8-inch) wafer processing for silicon-on-sapphire
process (a variation of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology)
that incorporates an ultra-thin layer of silicon on a highly
insulating sapphire substrate
"We are pleased to be working with Peregrine to enable
the next generation of RF circuits on sapphire and extend
our leadership in insulating substrates by adding the 180nm
UltraCMOS process to our world-class portfolio of RFSOI
technologies," said Regina Darmoni, director of IBM's
Analog/Mixed-Signal and Digital Foundry business. Migration
to 200mm wafers facilitates the evolution of the process
to advanced 180nm, 130nm and 90nm nodes. It also provides
access to advanced manufacturing toolsets and enables significantly
expanded digital integration capability. Further, the agreement
with IBM provides, through its world-class Technology Alliance
partners, unprecedented levels of manufacturing capacity
and a robust supply chain.
"We are extremely proud to be developing future generations
of UltraCMOS with one of the global leaders in semiconductor
process technology," stated Jim Cable, president and
C.E.O. of Peregrine Semiconductor. "Our company has
long been committed to driving technological change in RF
by bringing our silicon-on-sapphire RF process into the
global mainstream. By combining the strengths of our two
companies, we are continuing to deliver the promise of Moore's
Law for high-performance RF CMOS."
Collaboration between the two companies began in 2008 in
a view to use CMOS for RF designs over compound semiconductor
processes such as gallium arsenide (GaAs). The UltraCMOS
is said to provide all of the benefits offered by CMOS that
include reliability, cost-effectiveness, high yields, portability,
scalability and integration. Some of Peregrine's innovations
is HaRP design methodology and is said to have brought about
unprecedented levels of harmonic performance and the recently
developed DuNE technology, which is said to have produced
digitally tunable capacitors, that is said to solve the
design challenges in RF tuning.
"The realization of our 180nm UltraCMOS process on
200mm sapphire wafers is a very important phase of our long-term
process development strategy," commented Mark Miscione,
vice-president and chief strategist for technology solutions
at Peregrine Semiconductor. "Throughout the last several
years, we have invested significant capital and effort with
our partners to strengthen the overall SOS supply chain
and improve the economics of the base sapphire substrate
material. This has been accomplished by the global acceptance
of SOS technology, as evidenced by the more than 600 million
UltraCMOS RF ICs shipped from our foundries within the past
few years. These improvements have also been fueled by the
tremendous volume of sapphire now being used by the rapidly
expanding LED lighting industry."
Availability:
The 180nm UltraCMOS RFICs commercial production release
is expected in 2011.
For more information visit: www.psemi.com.
