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US back on the fast track
US Back on the
Fast Track Jo Ann McDonald, US Correspondent Compound semiconductors have always given silicon a run for its money in certain niches, but 1994 and the fusion of home electronics with computer technologies should mark an unprecedented milestone. The most aggressive contenders are the large volume GaAs-MESFETS and GaAs-HBTs for wireless applications, and a newcomer, first cousin of silicon, SiGe-HBTs. ilicon technology is moving fast, but the compounds are still faster, have lower power, higher efficiency, and, thanks to the bonafide new large volume insertions, they're finally affordable (around $4 per MMIC). All this excitement about a US "National Information Infrastructure" (NII) is clearly a major driver, and the players establishing the quickest Nil on-ramps to this socalled "superhighway" are from the US.
S
I B M / A D I DEBUT SiGe HBTs hottest news is validation of IBM's SiGe process at Yorktown Heights, NY, by Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI, Greensboro, NC). Quite some time ago IBM dropped its GaAs interests in f a v o u r o f SiGe, and obviously the switch is about to pay off. An initial ADI test vehicle chip using the IBM process was announced at the International Electron Devices Meeting ( I E D M ) in Washington DC in early December; a 1 GHz, 12-bit D/A converter with a Si ECL interface. Flash converters and direct digital synthesizer circuits are likely to be the next. The beauty of the process is that it can be integrated with digital CMOS, thus a "go" signal for single-chip digital telephones. SiGe HBTs promise faster switching speed than the silicon bipolar junction transistor, while The
The IEEE has elected Dr. Charles Huang as a Fellow o f the Institute. Dr. Huang is executive VP, market research and business development, for ANADIGICS, INC. The Fellow is the highest grade of membership in the 1EEE, and is available to only a select number of nominees annually who have made important individual contributions to one of 1EEE's designated.fields of interest. He was elected with the .following citation: "For engineering contribution and technical leadership in the development o f high-volume GaAs M M I C s for commercial applications." Dr. Huang co-Jbunded ANADIGICS in 1985. Since then, the company has grown to become the largest sole source supplier o f GaAs 1Cs in the world, and was recently named to the INC. 500 list of the fastest growing private companies in America,
Page 35 I
Vol 7 No 1
maintaining the cost and yield advantages of silicon, it is claimed. In an invited address for the IEEE International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) to be held 16-18 February in San Francisco, California, the IBM/ADI team will examine the potential impact of their SiGe HBT on digital and analog circuits. As quoted direct from the abstract: "Progress on SiGe technology has been rapid, with the first SiGe HBT in 1987, announcement of a 75 G H z fT non-self-aligned SiGe HBT in 1990, and with the report last year of a full SiGe ECL BiCMOS technology integrating 60 G H z fm~x SiGe HBTs with state of the art 0.25 micron CMOS. SiGe growth techniques have matured quickly, and practical reliable manufacture on 200mm wafers is near. Unloaded SiGe ECL circuits switch at <20ps, and a IW 12b, current output 1.0 G H z DAC demonstrates the analog capabilities of HBT technology." The process is still very young, however, and there are problems that will have to be worked out before it's accepted extensively. RF Microwave Devices, the design house that was the first to put TRW's new GaAs MMIC HBTs to work in high volume insertions in the new AT&T extended range portable telephones, (see Communications Roundup this issue) has been looking into IBM's SiGe process for its potential in executing similar R F M D power amplifiers as are run on TRW's GaAs process. According
~i~iiiirii~i~f~i~i~iii~i~i~ii!i~i~ii~iii~i~!~i~i~iiiiiiii~iii~i~i~i~i~ii~iii~ii~i~i~i~{~iiii~i~i .... :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: .....................~:::::~ .....................~............ "
to Jerry Neal, VP of Marketing at R F M D , "the problem is that the breakdown voltage on the (IBM's 12 GHz) process is very low, and so to get any real meaningful power, you have to have pretty' good voltage swings, because most of the systems are 50 ohms. It becomes ahnost impossible to develop a real power amplifier using that process the way, it is right now given the voltage breakdowns." R F M D , like a growing number of leading design houses, really doesn't care what materials the components arc made of. just that they do the job. I[" that doesn't whet the appetite lot a rousing good wireless competition, check out what the large volume GaAs players are up to in thai same communications roundup. A nuIllber of news,aorthy events f o r ( ; a A s leaders have recentl,< taken place that assures GaAs importance to the Nil, summed tip by Ron Rosenz~eig, President and CEO of Anadigics: "We'll be part of the ton gates on the infornmtion superhighway." Anadigits hit a whopping "I0 million parts shipped" milestone as of the summer of 1993, tripled its re,~enues from $6.6 million in 1991 to $20 million in 1992, and today sells some 4 million units per year and controls 80% of the European DBS market and 10',;, o f the .lapanesc I)BS market, h's getting about time for Anadigics to join TriQuini, Vitesse and Kopin in going public. Kepis, which started out in GaAs, then switched to SOS aim SOI. is gearing tip i\~r the Nil through a number o f alliances, one being a teaming arrangement with Honeywell (another original GaAs leader) in developing head-naounted displays for commercial entertainment and computer related applications. Kopin and Honeywell Military Avionics have been collaborating under a $92 million ARPA contract to develop active mutrix displays that lhe US Army intends to usc in its Abrams tanks and Bradley vehicles, but which are also suitable for a number of applications under lhe overall heading of "virtual reality." Obviously, the G a A s epitaxy cxperiencc xw
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merge \~itl~ 3('ore I~ COllllI1L!e t]c."~c~lo p n l e n t a l efforts. A l l in ~lll. the wireless l~lc;t.> 1',-~iieatin 7
7".*h . g i l D S'( ieHli~s KuA, c m , l v a m n ' , lw~ f~'~'~? o~,JrJ<,d ~h, ;?tvhc~r ,~, ~,,IoJc tr,,m h,,mehm,t ,q,,. S'f
offering of advanced technologies. They stein from the expanding number of collaborative efforts that sensibly blur those on-ramp lanes to t h e new d a i a s u p e r h i g h w a y . Raytheon, a major MMIC supplier for example, now owns nearly half of New ,lapan Radio Corporation. That alliance should be quite lucrati,,e for the lormer big defense contractor, and Raytheon is a traditional strong partner with Tcxas Instruments, a big M M I C player in the past who's executives arc essentially scrapping GaAs in favour of BiCMOS.
tip. "Out ol',R papers in1"~(]',:*AS. and there zlrc a whole lot c;l ihcm in Ihe opticail C O l l l l l l t l n i c a t i o n s , . e s s i t ) q . ' pc,isis o t l l I)OUg l v,ckic, i ormert,, ,~1
I'M ,6, t1<~ hds f o u n d e d ;t I1C\ t, Ct)lillli{in i c a l i o n s ~iartup callcci t : N l ) ( i \ T I ( ~ u n l l \ ~• . ; . t i c . C / \ ) ' . . .I.h a i s .l prc I, i>ia ,.
deal i\~r 1SSCC," hc adds. With SiGo a,, cin ISS('C headliner, and the NIl shapin7 up fast. there's plcut) el busincss ~>tlt there *,>r th<,sc fi~ i,,r lhe l'~isl lctllC.
Ion Beam Technology Direct ('ommonv,',:ahh Scientific Corp.. :Mcxandrki. \irginm. t %A. a long-standing leadcl in the
suppl 5 el ~on sources ~Alld it)II t~Calll
S~rS+LC[]I "~
l'cw milling {tlld deposition in III-V ;lml other <,clnict)ndncit~rs. is pleased to Lillltt)Ollt.'O {lit.! [\+rlnali,i\¢ plickagc IN ,;ale-. technictd ".Llppor( dlld ciltt.'i~alos ~ill hc ethic to bcriel]t 1'i+o111 {1 hl-al/d 110%% ('tlSloinci ,kpplicatiolls l a b o r a t o r ) , slal'l'cd b) ~i ~ p c c i a l i s t [CLIII1 Ltl)~d }lOLl>led in ',l 4500 ~'t-I !l
(?lass 1000 cletin r o o u l >,tllle ill
tile <,\lcxanctria. Virginia. I S A . facilit:.. Thi~ COlllploillCi/l>, lilt_' exisiiug 32 x q l l Jticlcli-,, prodLlciioll dlO[i, olTicc {llld cnglnccririg i.Olllplcx stipportcd h+x O\Cl lit0 ,killed design, cngineerhag. {ctllliicLi! ~;flt-:~, ;tl]{i a d m i n i s l r a l i o n sIMT I'he (ommon~ealth Scicntili, prt~dtici I'{tl/gC Ctill-ently i n c h i d e d 5 d i f f e r e n t t y p c s ~.~1 ioil .~titllCt2 cilch LIvLtii21blc ill it ;~.ide r{ll]gc t)i size> a n d w i t h c t l a r ~ l c t c r i s l i c > it> m a t c h ~,pccilic p r o c e s s need>. System*. o l l c r c d . r a n g e from s m a l l R & D u m t s up Io lull >,talc
[oadlockcd prodtiction units Lllld lll~lll\ II~.)>~> prodtlCl, "u't-' also under dc~elopmen! ( O#llNt l A ' i ~ h a r J DriHl, no'lcr, tu (¢)177111t~17 nt~z/l/7 3< i< tllilT~ ' I ]<,';. 7 W lix~ i 4 4 1 1 ) 7 . 7 - I -7O54(}
Page 36
Vol 7 No 1
Fast Track Jo Ann McDonald, US Correspondent Compound semiconductors have always given silicon a run for its money in certain niches, but 1994 and the fusion of home electronics with computer technologies should mark an unprecedented milestone. The most aggressive contenders are the large volume GaAs-MESFETS and GaAs-HBTs for wireless applications, and a newcomer, first cousin of silicon, SiGe-HBTs. ilicon technology is moving fast, but the compounds are still faster, have lower power, higher efficiency, and, thanks to the bonafide new large volume insertions, they're finally affordable (around $4 per MMIC). All this excitement about a US "National Information Infrastructure" (NII) is clearly a major driver, and the players establishing the quickest Nil on-ramps to this socalled "superhighway" are from the US.
S
I B M / A D I DEBUT SiGe HBTs hottest news is validation of IBM's SiGe process at Yorktown Heights, NY, by Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI, Greensboro, NC). Quite some time ago IBM dropped its GaAs interests in f a v o u r o f SiGe, and obviously the switch is about to pay off. An initial ADI test vehicle chip using the IBM process was announced at the International Electron Devices Meeting ( I E D M ) in Washington DC in early December; a 1 GHz, 12-bit D/A converter with a Si ECL interface. Flash converters and direct digital synthesizer circuits are likely to be the next. The beauty of the process is that it can be integrated with digital CMOS, thus a "go" signal for single-chip digital telephones. SiGe HBTs promise faster switching speed than the silicon bipolar junction transistor, while The
The IEEE has elected Dr. Charles Huang as a Fellow o f the Institute. Dr. Huang is executive VP, market research and business development, for ANADIGICS, INC. The Fellow is the highest grade of membership in the 1EEE, and is available to only a select number of nominees annually who have made important individual contributions to one of 1EEE's designated.fields of interest. He was elected with the .following citation: "For engineering contribution and technical leadership in the development o f high-volume GaAs M M I C s for commercial applications." Dr. Huang co-Jbunded ANADIGICS in 1985. Since then, the company has grown to become the largest sole source supplier o f GaAs 1Cs in the world, and was recently named to the INC. 500 list of the fastest growing private companies in America,
Page 35 I
Vol 7 No 1
maintaining the cost and yield advantages of silicon, it is claimed. In an invited address for the IEEE International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) to be held 16-18 February in San Francisco, California, the IBM/ADI team will examine the potential impact of their SiGe HBT on digital and analog circuits. As quoted direct from the abstract: "Progress on SiGe technology has been rapid, with the first SiGe HBT in 1987, announcement of a 75 G H z fT non-self-aligned SiGe HBT in 1990, and with the report last year of a full SiGe ECL BiCMOS technology integrating 60 G H z fm~x SiGe HBTs with state of the art 0.25 micron CMOS. SiGe growth techniques have matured quickly, and practical reliable manufacture on 200mm wafers is near. Unloaded SiGe ECL circuits switch at <20ps, and a IW 12b, current output 1.0 G H z DAC demonstrates the analog capabilities of HBT technology." The process is still very young, however, and there are problems that will have to be worked out before it's accepted extensively. RF Microwave Devices, the design house that was the first to put TRW's new GaAs MMIC HBTs to work in high volume insertions in the new AT&T extended range portable telephones, (see Communications Roundup this issue) has been looking into IBM's SiGe process for its potential in executing similar R F M D power amplifiers as are run on TRW's GaAs process. According
~i~iiiirii~i~f~i~i~iii~i~i~ii!i~i~ii~iii~i~!~i~i~iiiiiiii~iii~i~i~i~i~ii~iii~ii~i~i~i~{~iiii~i~i .... :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: .....................~:::::~ .....................~............ "
to Jerry Neal, VP of Marketing at R F M D , "the problem is that the breakdown voltage on the (IBM's 12 GHz) process is very low, and so to get any real meaningful power, you have to have pretty' good voltage swings, because most of the systems are 50 ohms. It becomes ahnost impossible to develop a real power amplifier using that process the way, it is right now given the voltage breakdowns." R F M D , like a growing number of leading design houses, really doesn't care what materials the components arc made of. just that they do the job. I[" that doesn't whet the appetite lot a rousing good wireless competition, check out what the large volume GaAs players are up to in thai same communications roundup. A nuIllber of news,aorthy events f o r ( ; a A s leaders have recentl,< taken place that assures GaAs importance to the Nil, summed tip by Ron Rosenz~eig, President and CEO of Anadigics: "We'll be part of the ton gates on the infornmtion superhighway." Anadigits hit a whopping "I0 million parts shipped" milestone as of the summer of 1993, tripled its re,~enues from $6.6 million in 1991 to $20 million in 1992, and today sells some 4 million units per year and controls 80% of the European DBS market and 10',;, o f the .lapanesc I)BS market, h's getting about time for Anadigics to join TriQuini, Vitesse and Kopin in going public. Kepis, which started out in GaAs, then switched to SOS aim SOI. is gearing tip i\~r the Nil through a number o f alliances, one being a teaming arrangement with Honeywell (another original GaAs leader) in developing head-naounted displays for commercial entertainment and computer related applications. Kopin and Honeywell Military Avionics have been collaborating under a $92 million ARPA contract to develop active mutrix displays that lhe US Army intends to usc in its Abrams tanks and Bradley vehicles, but which are also suitable for a number of applications under lhe overall heading of "virtual reality." Obviously, the G a A s epitaxy cxperiencc xw
' ~:: ~:~:!~,~i :~i~/~i~!~~ ~iii!L,~iii:ii~;i~i~i~i!i!i
'~......... ~{~7~{~{~{~{~{~{~{~;~{~{~~i~:~: 7~:.~:.
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ber belx~een (Santa
nelworkln.g
(']:Ala.
(',\}
4ncl
b l g g / c ;\( ()>.,{
i'~<
MMtt
neer Pacific Monolil hi,,> ( ~{i[ll]i', ', ] iV ViOtisl;
"wired
~,ill\"
cillptict.,i,
t,,
"Wireless Ethernet" 1 \ N , l i;
lllanu['acttlrc
'Aild
%c'ii
v~iit/les <,
[,AN products based on I'M'> Jcsigns,
alld
LI P M
design
te~lp,~ ~itl
merge \~itl~ 3('ore I~ COllllI1L!e t]c."~c~lo p n l e n t a l efforts. A l l in ~lll. the wireless l~lc;t.> 1',-~iieatin 7
7".*h . g i l D S'( ieHli~s KuA, c m , l v a m n ' , lw~ f~'~'~? o~,JrJ<,d ~h, ;?tvhc~r ,~, ~,,IoJc tr,,m h,,mehm,t ,q,,. S'f
offering of advanced technologies. They stein from the expanding number of collaborative efforts that sensibly blur those on-ramp lanes to t h e new d a i a s u p e r h i g h w a y . Raytheon, a major MMIC supplier for example, now owns nearly half of New ,lapan Radio Corporation. That alliance should be quite lucrati,,e for the lormer big defense contractor, and Raytheon is a traditional strong partner with Tcxas Instruments, a big M M I C player in the past who's executives arc essentially scrapping GaAs in favour of BiCMOS.
tip. "Out ol',R papers in
I'M ,6, t1<~ hds f o u n d e d ;t I1C\ t, Ct)lillli{in i c a l i o n s ~iartup callcci t : N l ) ( i \ T I ( ~ u n l l \ ~• . ; . t i c . C / \ ) ' . . .I.h a i s .l prc I, i>ia ,.
deal i\~r 1SSCC," hc adds. With SiGo a,, cin ISS('C headliner, and the NIl shapin7 up fast. there's plcut) el busincss ~>tlt there *,>r th<,sc fi~ i,,r lhe l'~isl lctllC.
Ion Beam Technology Direct ('ommonv,',:ahh Scientific Corp.. :Mcxandrki. \irginm. t %A. a long-standing leadcl in the
suppl 5 el ~on sources ~Alld it)II t~Calll
S~rS+LC[]I "~
l'cw milling {tlld deposition in III-V ;lml other <,clnict)ndncit~rs. is pleased to Lillltt)Ollt.'O {lit.! [\+rlnali
(?lass 1000 cletin r o o u l >,tllle ill
tile <,\lcxanctria. Virginia. I S A . facilit:.. Thi~ COlllploillCi/l>, lilt_' exisiiug 32 x q l l Jticlcli-,, prodLlciioll dlO[i, olTicc {llld cnglnccririg i.Olllplcx stipportcd h+x O\Cl lit0 ,killed design, cngineerhag. {ctllliicLi! ~;flt-:~, ;tl]{i a d m i n i s l r a l i o n sIMT I'he (ommon~ealth Scicntili, prt~dtici I'{tl/gC Ctill-ently i n c h i d e d 5 d i f f e r e n t t y p c s ~.~1 ioil .~titllCt2 cilch LIvLtii21blc ill it ;~.ide r{ll]gc t)i size> a n d w i t h c t l a r ~ l c t c r i s l i c > it> m a t c h ~,pccilic p r o c e s s need>. System*. o l l c r c d . r a n g e from s m a l l R & D u m t s up Io lull >,talc
[oadlockcd prodtiction units Lllld lll~lll\ II~.)>~> prodtlCl, "u't-' also under dc~elopmen! ( O#llNt l A ' i ~ h a r J DriHl, no'lcr, tu (¢)177111t~17 nt~z/l/7 3< i< tllilT~ ' I ]<,';. 7 W lix~ i 4 4 1 1 ) 7 . 7 - I -7O54(}
Page 36
Vol 7 No 1