Monday, August 8, 2005
IBM has announced the availability a fourth generation of its silicon germanium foundry manufacturing process, which the company claimed provides twice the performance of the previous generation.
Along with the high-performance 8HP process, IBM is offering a lower-cost variation (8WL) specifically targeted at low power consumption in wireless applications such as cell phones, wireless LANs and global positioning satellite (GPS) technology, IBM said.
With a transition frequency of 200 GHz, the high-performance 8HP process will for the first time bring commodity-priced RF ICs to frequency bands far above 20 GHz. The low-cost 8WL version of the same process, with approximately half the performance, will be aimed at commercial wireless and GPS markets already served today by more expensive high-end solutions.
The processes are 130-nanometer SiGe bipolar complementary metal oxide semiconductor (BiCMOS) process, compared with IBM’s previous processes at 180-nanometer geometries, and can address a broad variety of applications, IBM said. The 130-nm foundry “platform” also includes an RF CMOS technology option, giving IBM foundry customers choices for RF and mixed-signal applications.
The applications include: 24-GHz radar for emerging safety systems for automobiles, blind-spot detection and at 77-GHz for collision warning and cruise control; 60-GHz carrier Wi-Fi chips, software defined radios that convert to digital at the antenna.
By: Docmemory
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