Tower Semiconductor gain share in FEM market by replacing GaAs with Si

The specialty semiconductor foundry service provider TowerJazz has announced it is gaining significant market share in the fast growing Front-End Module (FEM) market. TowerJazz's radio module packs antenna switches, antenna tuners, diversity switches, controllers, low-noise-amplifiers (LNAs) and power amplifiers (PAs), and that saves the designer from using discrete GaAs devices. Tower says it employs RF Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology and a SiGe PA technology together with 0.18um RF CMOS for integration of control and MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) interface functions. TowerJazz achieved best figure of merit for antenna switch and antenna tuning applications with Ron-Coff of only 217fs using RF SOI technology instead of GaAs technology. Tower claims there are over 50 separate designs taped-in with initial designs ramping to production. To power amplifier, controller, and MIPI interface are fabricated using TowerJazz's Silicon Germanium (SiGe) PA process at 0.18um technology node. Through-silicon-via is also employed by Tower for 3D IC stacking. TowerJazz says the economic and performance driven move from GaAs technologies to Si and SiGe technologies is expected to more than triple the portion of the FEM market available to the company over the next several years. Tower shares market forecast by Mobile Experts, LLC, which says the hands...