Technical Insight
New RF process is designed to integrate (GaAs News)
Two companies, Communicant Semiconductor Technologies and Motorola have both qualified their own new processes for RF applications that are based on carbon-doped SiGe structures. Motorola s 0.35 m HBT process employs a C-doped SiGe base (see ) and is designed to integrate a variety of active and passive devices on-chip. The device offers a cut-off frequency of 45 GHz and a maximum operating frequency of 90 GHz, at half the current required by current SiGe transistors. Motorola says the addition of carbon provides excellent manufacturing latitude and a low noise figure, for only one additional masking step. Communicant Semiconductor Technologies plans to manufacture SiGe:C BiCMOS and Si CMOS wafers at a new $1.5 billion facility in Frankfurt, Germany. The company will license technology from two major investors: IHP, a microelectronics R&D center that provides the SiGe:C process; and Intel, which will supply its 0.18 m CMOS process.