RFMD Expands Foundry to Include GaAs Technologies in Europe
RF Micro Devices (RFMD), a major designer and manufacturer of high-performance radio frequency components and compound semiconductor technologies, has announced that it has added Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) technology to its foundry services portfolio.
The firm will begin providing a full suite of GaAs Pseudomorphic High Electron Mobility Transistor (pHEMT) technologies to customers of its Foundry Services business unit.
Specifically, RFMD will make available three distinct GaAs pHEMT technologies optimized for high power, low noise and RF switching products. RFMD's 0.3-micron pHEMT technology delivers high power and is optimized for X-band phased array power amplifiers (PAs) and 8-16 GHz wideband military electronic warfare jammers.
The firm’s 0.25-micron pHEMT technology delivers low noise, medium power and high linearity and is targeted at applications including low noise front ends and transmitter MMICs. RFMD's 0.6-micron pHEMT technology provides low noise and high linearity switching of RF signals and is designed for applications including wireless front ends and transmit/receive modules.
All of the process technologies are manufactured in RFMD's Newton Aycliffe, United Kingdom fab, providing RFMD's Foundry Services customers access to European technology with ease of European import/export controls.
RFMD currently provides Foundry Services customers access to two of RFMD's gallium nitride (GaN) process technologies from its Greensboro, NC wafer fab : GaN1, targeted at high power applications, and GaN2, targeted at high linearity applications. RFMD also offers an Integrated Passive Component (IPC) technology optimized to complement high power applications.
RFMD's advanced GaAs pHEMT technologies are complementary to the Company's GaN technologies and other power semiconductor technologies for the design of multi-chip modules (MCMs).
Bob Van Buskirk, president of RFMD's Multi-Market Products Group (MPG), said, "RFMD is the world's largest manufacturer of III-V circuits for electronics, including both GaAs and GaN. For the last 15 years RFMD has been supplying our customers world-class products manufactured in our wafer fabrication facilities. Now we are presenting this same opportunity to others.
“With our world class GaAs technology, technology expertise, high volume manufacturing, industry-leading cycle times and unprecedented levels of support, our foundry service enables a wide range of foundry customers to utilize advanced compound semiconductor technologies in an efficient and cost effective business model," he concluded.
RFMD's Foundry Services business unit was formed to deliver RFMD's high-reliability, high-performance and price-competitive process technologies to external foundry customers immediately upon process qualification and production release.
RF Micro Devices designs and manufactures high-performance semiconductor components. Its products enable worldwide mobility, provide enhanced connectivity and support advanced functionality in the cellular handset, wireless infrastructure, wireless local area network (WLAN), CATV/broadband and aerospace and defense markets.
RFMD is recognized for its diverse portfolio of semiconductor technologies and RF systems expertise and is a preferred supplier to the world's leading mobile device, customer premises and communications equipment providers.
An interview with RFMD on its introduction of GaAs foundry services will appear in the October issue of Compound Semiconductor magazine.
