All-silicon process accelerates power analogue

Zarlink Semiconductor reckons it has developed the world's most cost-effective and advanced commercial foundry service for producing high-voltage high-speed analogue chips.

Zarlink Semiconductor reckons it has developed the world's most cost-effective and advanced commercial foundry service for producing high-voltage, high-speed analogue chips.

Performance improvements in popular consumer and telecommunications products - such as DVD players, digital video recorders and DSL modems - are fuelling demand for analogue devices that combine powerful, high-voltage outputs with high-speed data rates.

Drawing on its expertise in complementary silicon bipolar technology, Zarlink has designed and fully qualified a new process - called HJV (high-performance, process version J, high-voltage) - for high-voltage, high-speed analogue chips.

With HJV, Zarlink is offering the industry's first open-market process capable of fabricating this challenging class of chips in all-silicon substrates.

All other commercial facilities use more expensive processes, such as GaAs (gallium arsenide) and SOI (silicon on insulator).

"Customers want a commercial process that uses low-cost, proven silicon technology to build high-voltage, high-speed analogue devices", said Steve Phelps, Director of Zarlink's silicon bipolar foundry in Swindon, UK.

"Our HJV technology offers significant cost and performance advantages over more exotic chip processes, and a more comprehensive suite of design components".

Leading analogue semiconductor companies are currently evaluating Zarlink's HJV silicon process for a range of high-performance analogue devices, including DVD laser drivers, DSL line drivers, operational amplifiers, and high-speed amplifiers.

Zarlink's HJV silicon process is a double-polysilicon, triple-metal technology with fully complementary NPN and PNP transistor structures.

To overcome traditional trade-offs between high-speed and high-voltage operation and achieve excellent ratings in both these areas, the process employs advanced fabrication techniques, including state-of-the-art epitaxy, high-energy implantation, deep trench isolation, and rapid thermal processing.

When collector emitter voltage)is 5V, the transit frequency, or operating speed, of both transistor types is 12GHz, and their maximum oscillation frequency is 25GHz.

Both transistor types also have high collector-emitter breakdown voltages - typically greater than 12V - which are critical for high-power device designs.

A comprehensive design kit supports Zarlink's high-speed, high-voltage complementary bipolar silicon process.

The kit features an extensive suite of well-characterised, high-quality analogue design components.

These include NPN/PNP devices with currents ranging from 0.1 to 40mA, Schottky diodes, three types of polysilicon resistors, inter-metal capacitors, and inductors on top-level metal.

Zarlink's HJV service offers multiproject wafer processing with fast turnaround.

Cycles times from receipt of masks to delivery of electrically conformant wafers are typically 18 days - significantly faster than the industry's usual turnaround of one mask per day.

Back to top