Technical Insight
RFMD and TriQuint enter silicon germanium alliances (GaAs NEWS)
Two leading GaAs manufacturers, RF Micro Devices and TriQuint Semiconductor, have formed separate alliances with SiGe device manufacturers to develop RF wireless chips and to broaden their technology portfolios. RFMD is teaming with Agere Systems to manufacture chips for data-enabled digital cellular phones and other telecom products, while TriQuint and Atmel will jointly develop chipsets for CDMA handsets. RFMD and Agere extend alliance The AgereRFMD alliance expands on an existing collaboration to bundle power amplifiers with other wireless chips into complete SiGe chipsets for digital cellular handsets, and wireless LAN and Bluetooth devices. The alliance also leverages Agere s silicon processes, and includes the creation of an RF center of excellence for chip process technology and design. As part of the collaboration, RFMD will invest approximately $58 million over 2 years to upgrade manufacturing clean-room space and purchase semiconductor manufacturing equipment, which will be deployed within Agere s manufacturing facility in Orlando, Florida. Production resulting from the new equipment will be allocated first to RFMD and subsequently to Agere. This is intended to secure silicon capacity for RFMD, while the companies say they will both benefit from combined operations and increased manufacturing volumes. RFMD also plans to deploy Si engineers at Agere s Florida facility. "This alliance provides us with the silicon manufacturing capacity needed to expand our RF product portfolio beyond power amplifiers," said RFMD s Jerry Neal. "In addition, we believe this collaboration will enable RFMD to help define and develop next-generation silicon processes for wireless applications, while providing a framework for both companies to collaborate on the development of new wireless products." TriQuint and Atmel team up TriQuint and Atmel (Heilbronn, Germany) will co-operate on the design and manufacture of integrated chipsets for CDMA handsets as part of their CDMA345 project (see ). Atmel has a SiGe RF process designed for communications applications that operates at up to 82 GHz (see Compound Semiconductor Dec 2000/Jan 2001, p31). The project has already led to the release of the first device. This is a 3 V SiGe CDMA power amplifier designed for use with IS-95/98 and AMPS-compliant phones (see figure and page 40). A CDMA RF transmit solution is also expected to be available for volume production later this year. "TriQuint and Atmel engineers jointly developed each circuit block," said TriQuint s director of technology and business development, Dilek Barlas. "The performance of these circuits and the speed with which they have been developed has already demonstrated the value of this co-operation."
