GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) announced the availability of the industry’s first RF SOI foundry solution manufactured on 300 mm wafers. The company’s most advanced RF SOI technology, 8SW SOI, delivers significant performance, integration and area advantages in front-end modules (FEM) for 4G LTE and sub-6 GHz 5G mobile and wireless communications applications.
GF’s new 8SW technology offers a low cost, low power, highly flexible solution with superior switching, low noise amplifiers (LNA) and logic processing capabilities on a 300 mm manufacturing line. The technology features up to 70 percent power reduction compared to the previous generation, with higher voltage handling, a best-in-class on-resistance (Ron) and off-capacitance (Coff) — for reduced insertion loss with high isolation — and an all-copper interconnect that improves power-handling.
The 300 mm RF silicon-on-insulator (SOI) based technology gives designers a cost-effective platform with an optimal combination of performance, integration and power efficiency and greater digital integration. GF’s 8SW technology incorporates a specialized substrate optimization that maximizes the quality factor for passive devices, reduces parasitic capacitance for active circuits and minimizes the disparity in phase and voltage swing for devices operating in the sub-6 GHz frequency range. The technology showcases an optimized LNA with leadership noise figure and high ft/fmax, supporting diversity receive and main antenna path LNA applications for today’s 4G frequencies and future sub-6 GHz 5G FEMs.
Process design kits are available now.
The advanced 8SW technology is manufactured on GF’s 300 mm production line at Fab 10 in East Fishkill, New York and provides the industry with manufacturing capacity to meet the expected market demand at a lower cost.
Joel King, vice president and general manager of Advanced Mobile Solutions for Skyworks, said, “Skyworks continues to leverage our broad systems expertise to bring highly customized solutions to customers worldwide. Our collaboration with GF has provided Skyworks early access to best-in-class switch and LNA technology that will further advance RF front-ends for next-generation mobile devices and evolving IoT applications.”
Bami Bastani, senior vice president of GF’s RF business unit, said, “We now live in a world of connected intelligence where people expect and demand seamless, reliable data connectivity everywhere. But that’s only getting more difficult to achieve, as front-ends increasingly must be able to handle many different frequency bands and many different types of RF signals, along with integrated digital processing and control. As the industry leader in RF, we have developed the new 8SW process specifically to help customers meet their most pressing needs.”