Microwave Engineering Europe - May 2008 - (Page 12)

12 COVER FEATURE — GaAs FOUNDRY How to succeed as a GaAs foundry By Glen Riley and Mike Peters, TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc., www.triquint.com he Foundry model in the semiconductor business has been an important component for enabling the growth of many electronics markets. Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) foundry suppliers enable companies to access state of the art GaAs semiconductor technology to build high speed RFIC and MMIC products without the capital investment required for a major manufacturing facility. So what does it take to be successful as a GaAs foundry? New and emerging applications One key element of a successful foundry is providing innovative technology to capture the interest of customers designing circuits for new and emerging markets. GaAs is well suited for wireless applications, including WiMAX, WLAN, and 3/4G cellular. The overall market for GaAs RFIC’s and MMIC’s continues to grow, driven by both the unquenched thirst for more wireless communication bandwidth and development of circuits for emerging markets. According to Strategy Analytics, wireless communications is the largest segment of the GaAs market, accounting for a little more than $2 billion of a total of $3 billion in 2007. The remainder of the GaAs market is made up of Military, Fiber Optic Communications, Consumer, Automotive and other applications (see Figure 1). Within Wireless Communications, the largest market opportunity is the cellular handset market including 1G (analog), 2G (digital), and 2.5G/3G (broadband digital) technologies (see Figure 2). The long awaited commercialization of third generation cellular (3G or WCDMA) is now here. 3G handsets have 2- to 3-times the GaAs content of 2G (GSM/EDGE) phones. Clearly, this is a huge growth driver in the handset segment and GaAs market overall. However, though handsets represent more than half of the total GaAs market, it is a margin challenged business due to the limited number of handset manufacturers and their ability to drive down the Average Selling Price (ASP). Therefore, the handset market is best served by Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs) that can achieve lower Bill of Material (BOM) costs through vertical integration. T Figure 1: GaAs MMIC merchant market by application (Strategy Analytics GaAs industry forecast - April 2007). The best opportunities for GaAs foundries to expand their customer base lie in the other half of the GaAs market. This includes traditional applications such as WLAN, Point-to-Point Radios, Cordless phones, and Fiber Optic Communications. Opportunities also abound in emerging applications such as automotive radar, which is becoming a more mainstream offering due to lower costs driven by volume production and manufacturing efﬁciencies. Typically, startups and smaller companies are the ﬁrst to explore new and emerging markets and often utilize a foundry model to avoid the overhead and capital expenditure associated with developing manufacturing expertise. Successful GaAs foundries will have a process for identifying and targeting start-ups and companies developing new uses for GaAs technologies. Working with these new customers will help GaAs foundries further develop and execute a state of the art technology roadmap, positioning them for long-term success in the foundry business. Threat of silicon Can GaAs foundries be successful in new and emerging markets or will Silicon (Si) develop solutions and displace GaAs? Si has driven GaAs out of mainstream markets in the past, most recently, in the cellular transceiver market. However, GaAs offers an excellent value proposition versus Si for high speed analog and RF functions. Rumors of Si making dramatic inroads into the GSM PA market are exaggerated. Some Si vendors have achieved low volume production but the wide spread adoption of Si PAs is hindered by performance shortcomings. Conversely, GaAs technology continues to demonstrate improvements in performance and integration levels. Highly integrated GaAs modules offer improved functionality and battery life while taking up less PC board space. New developments in GaAs technologies such as BiHEMT, which integrates GaAs pHEMT and HBT onto a single die, enable even higher levels of integration and functionality. Improvements in GaAs manufacturing continue to make it more cost-competitive, shattering the old myth that GaAs is signiﬁcantly more expensive than Si. Also die sizes tend to be much smaller per equivalent function therefore GaAs R&D costs can be signiﬁcantly lower when amortized across production units. A typical GaAs mask set costs between $25,000 and $50,000 whereas a typical Si mask set can cost from $50,000 up to $1 million. GaAs foundries must help their customers understand the performance beneﬁts and cost models to successfully debunk Si myths. GaAs has ﬁrmly established itself as the technology of choice for RF front-ends in wireless applications. Microwave Engineering Europe ● May 2008 ● www.mwee.com http://www.triquint.com http://www.mwee.com

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Microwave Engineering Europe - May 2008 News Contents Comment Cover Feature: How to Succeed as a GaAs Foundry Wireless Networking: Wireless Coverage Where Everybody WINS Wireless Networking: Achieving Good Coexistence in the 2.4 GHz ISM Band GPS and Satellite: GPS developments: Galileo Moves Forward with Successful Giove-B Satellite Launch — Broadcom Targets AGPS in Mobile Phones and Devices Raising the Bar for the Radio: Making 802.11n Work Reducing Power Consumption in Ultrawideband Chips WiMax Catches Second Test Wave Products Calendar

Microwave Engineering Europe - May 2008

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