SiGe experts push CMOS envelope for Light Peak transceivers Oct 9, 2009
Ensphere's main business has been contract design work, but it branched out into standard products last year with a line of chips that includes a 10-Gbit/s electro-optical transceiver cast in 180-nanometer silicon germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS. For its Light Peak transceiver chip, Ensphere chose to push the envelope by going with 65-nanometer CMOS.. "We were used to 10-Gbit transceivers costing $50 or more," said vice president of marketing Al Gharakhanian. (EETimes)
Analysis: TI fab ramp puts analog rivals on notice Oct 2, 2009
25-micron process is a high-power, BiCMOS technology. Chips based on the LBC7 process account for 40 percent of TI's analog output. (EETimes)
Terahertz SiGe imager sees through clothes Jun 16, 2009
At the RFIC Symposium, however, several designs using and BiCMOS processes were described in addition to UCSD's SiGe solution, promising less costly processes that could be run on standard silicon fabrication equipment. "We should be able to bring the costs of those sorts of systems down, perhaps even to handheld scanners," said Jason May, an EE doctoral candidate who works at Rebeiz' UCSD lab. (EETimes)
Electronics designed to endure the cold of space Mar 11, 2009
The world's differential amplifier circuit designed specifically for temperatures extending down into the cryogenic region was fabricated using IBM's silicon-germanium BiCMOS process ... 3-volt power supply with 100-microamps bias current, the BiCMOS differential amplifier achieved an open loop gain of 72 dB and a unity gain frequency of 130 MHz for an input common-mode range from 1 to 2. (EETimes)
XFab woos opto customers Feb 19, 2009
6 micron BiCMOS platform. These include a light shield module that according to the vendor overcomes previous on-chip light barriers used to protect light-sensitive areas on the semiconductor. (EETimes)
Researcher describes 77-GHz transceiver Feb 12, 2009
Researchers at ST Microelectronics and the University of Catania described a single-chip UWB transceiver made in a 130-nm BiCMOS process ... The 180-nm BiCMOS part used shared pulse generators and frequency synthesizers and consumed about 1W.. (EETimes)
