Peregrine Semiconductor Corp., a leading supplier of high performance RF CMOS and mixed-signal communications ICs and OKI Electric Industry Co. Ltd. announced that their collaborative efforts toward the ramp and manufacture of 0.5 μm UltraCMOS™ RFICs in OKI’s fabrication facility has completed qualification by Peregrine’s major customers and OKI is now shipping in high volume.
This is a significant milestone, set in the early technology transfer process which began three years ago. When combined with the manufacturing capacity of Peregrine’s wholly-owned wafer fab in Sydney, Australia, enormous production capability exists. Collectively, the two companies are manufacturing 2.5 million UltraCMOS devices per week. This news is a result of the foundry sourcing agreement between the companies which combines Peregrine’s UltraCMOS process technology and RF design expertise with OKI’s high volume manufacturing capability.
The RFIC devices manufactured in Oki’s Miyazaki facility are shipped globally to a wide variety of customers in the mobile handset, digital television, and communications infrastructure markets.
Since UltraCMOS products are manufactured on standard CMOS process equipment, the scalability benefit is being reaped; deployment of 0.25 μm UltraCMOS, which is in production at Peregrine’s Australia facility, is well underway with OKI.
Concurrently, the two companies are jointly developing 0.25 μm products at Peregrine’s design facilities in San Diego, CA and Chicago, IL. Product manufacturing of 0.25 μm UltraCMOS products will be independently maintained at Peregrine’s facility in Sydney, Australia and at OKI facilities in Miyazaki, Japan.
“Establishing UltraCMOS as a dominant high-performance RF technology is only a matter of time, and by combining strengths with OKI we have greatly advanced the timeline,” stated Jim Cable, CEO of Peregrine Semiconductor Corp. “OKI’s deep resources, manufacturing expertise and packaging technology will allow for the acceleration of product deployment and technology advancement,” he added.
“OKI fabrication facilities provide an order of magnitude increase in capacity to Peregrine,” stated Yuki Ushida, Operating Officer of OKI Semiconductor. “Our present manufacturing support will increase by supporting production of ten new UltraCMOS products this year,” he added.
Peregrine has brought to market a variety of innovative UltraCMOS RF ICs throughout the recent years – devices which deliver performance objectives set by market leaders with highly stringent RF design requirements. These companies include global cellular powerhouses such as Nokia and Motorola; navigation/communications experts including Garmin; as well as CATV/DTV leaders Samsung and Xuguang.