SOI fab news: 130nm 300mm RFSOI and 180nm SOI foundry capacity available

RF Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology focused chip company Peregrine Semiconductor announced industry’s first RF SOI technology built on GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ 130 nm 300 mm RF technology platform. This process technology platform called UltraCMOS 11 uses a custom fabrication flow from GLOBALFOUNDRIES' Fab 7 facility in Singapore. 300mm helps in achieving manufacturing scale of RF SOI chips in applications including mobile devices and high-volume RF communication applications. Peregrine's 40 GHz switch which is an RF silicon-on-insulator (SOI) performs as good as gallium arsenide (GaAs) switches in applications such as test-and-measurement, microwave backhaul, radar and military communications applications. In another SOI semiconductor fab related news, X-FAB Silicon foundries announced 180nm SOI technology for automotive and industrial applications. X-FAB says its XT018 180-nanometer SOI platform outperforms bulk CMOS technologies and provides cost savings of up to 30-percent. XT018 process is suggested for advanced automotive applications such as monolithic motor controllers and physical layer transceivers including integrated or stand-alone LIN/CAN transceivers. The XT018 platform targeted at automotive, industrial and medical applications with up to 200V operating voltage and an operating temperature up to 175°C. "The X-FAB XT018 180nm modular high-voltage...