News & Events
Harris Announces New Process Technology Optimized For Wireless Communications Chips
Entire manufacturing process geared toward making better wireless chips
Optimized for 2.4 GHz operation
MELBOURNE, Fla., March 30, 1999 – Qualification chips from a new manufacturing process are currently under evaluation at Harris Semiconductor’s production facilities in Palm Bay, Florida. The new process, called UHF-2, has been developed specifically for the manufacture of high-speed data communications chips to operate in equipment for the 2.4 GHz ISM band, serving several segments of the growing wireless networking market.
MELBOURNE, Fla., March 30, 1999 Qualification chips from a new manufacturing process are currently under evaluation at Harris Semiconductors production facilities in Palm Bay, Florida. The new process, called UHF-2, has been developed specifically for the manufacture of high-speed data communications chips to operate in equipment for the 2.4 GHz ISM band, serving several segments of the growing wireless networking market.
"The wireless networking revolution may be the first big trend of the new millennium," said Ron Van Dell, vice president and general manager of Harris Semiconductors Communications Products Business. "But for wireless products to proliferate, especially with todays multimedia-heavy content, those products will have to be fast, affordable and not place heavy demands on battery life. The new process Harris is bringing on line will help in each of these areas."
The new UHF-2 process is a bipolar complementary metal oxide semiconductor (BiCMOS) manufacturing process that will be run in Harris Fab 59. It will provide higher performance transistors, lower power consumption and robust compliance to key parameters allowing for improved receiver sensitivity and range as compared to Harris current bipolar process (UHF1X). Preliminary testing shows the process achieving transistor performance measured at 25 GHz (T) and 34 GHz (max).
"This represents a major advancement in our manufacturing technology," Van Dell explained. "And, as opposed to buying foundry services, it gives Harris complete control of manufacturing cycle time, feature set, wafer cost, and defect density. Also, the process architecture allows extensions such as addition of silicon germanium (SiGe) bipolar transistors for the faster performance needed at higher frequencies, and to accommodate lithographic down-scaling of key CMOS feature sizes."
The new process also employs a trench isolation technique that allows denser packing of transistors on the chip, as compared to other process technologies such as junction isolation. Smaller die sizes reduce cost and are especially desirable for the small, mobile, battery-operated laptops, PDAs and other such devices that will soon sport wireless connectivity. It is critically important to the performance of RF integrated circuits (ICs) that passive components be performance-matched and of high quality. The UHF-2 process includes a suite of high quality passive components that can be integrated on-chip, rather than being bought separately and residing off-chip. This suite includes high quality inductors and capacitors and an excellent low-temperature-coefficient, precision resistor. This integration of previously off-chip passive components offers performance and reliability advantages along with reduction of the total wireless system cost by reducing the bill-of-materials cost.
Harris expects the qualification of the process to be complete in July, with first sample products out in the Fall. Full production is expected to ramp in the first months of the new millennium.
Harris Corporation's Semiconductor sector manufactures discrete semiconductors and integrated circuits. Product development efforts are focused on innovative "next level solutions" for the communications and power markets. The companys portfolio of high-value products serve many market segments automotive, industrial, PC computing, wireless networking, signal processing, telecommunications, PC multimedia, consumer electronics, defense and space. The worldwide website is http://www.semi.harris.com.
Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS), with worldwide sales of $3.9 billion, is an international communications and electronics company focused on providing product, system and service solutions that take its customers to the next level. The company provides a wide range of products and services such as wireless and personal communications, digital television (HDTV), health care information, automotive electronics, transportation, business information, defense communications and information and Lanier office products.
