6″ GaAs lower-cost than Si for high-performance ICs
✍ Scribed by Mustafa Saglam
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 434 KB
- Volume
- 13
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0961-1290
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
A significant part of the European Microwave week held in Munich last October was the event Gallium Arsenide and other semiconductor Applications Symposium (CAAS'99). This comprised two full days of contributed and invited presentations followed by a full day of short courses with a high number of participants.
I
n the opening session of GAAS'99, Charles Huang of Anadigics Inc addressed the important issues of optoelectronic ap plications for Gigabit Ethernet. The key point was that this market is expected to grow at a phenomenal 45%plus annual rate for the next five years and that III-V technologies are expected to dominate for frontend ICs (optical wavelength sources, detectors, transimpedance amplifiers, laser drivers, etc).
This III-V dominance will be maintained because a direct bandgap is hard to beat for photon interactions. However, horizontal integration must take place to lower costs and improve bandwidth, i.e. the technology must evolve so that optoelectronic devices and transistors are placed on the same chip.
Marc Rocchi of PML highlighted the last 10 years of III-V foundry services, their role, the processes offered, customer support, and CAD tools.The second plenary session addressed miIlimetre-wave integrated circuit (MMIC) packaging for the consumer market. The importance of surface mount packaging and optimised via technology was emphasised.
The focused session on "Military and Space Applications" attracted many delegates. M.C. Comparini of Alenia Aerospazio described work supported by ESA/ESTEC, the aim of which was to develop a set of MMICs to be used for Ka-band telecommunication satellite payloads. The MMICs have been designed by AIenia and UMS; UMS