GLOBALFOUNDRIES announced this week at its annual Global Technology Conference (GTC), that the company’s mobile-optimized 8SW 300mm RF SOI technology platform has been qualified and is in production. Several clients are currently engaged for this RF SOI process, tailored to accommodate aggressive LTE and Sub-6 GHz standards for front-end module (FEM) applications, including 5G IoT, mobile device and wireless communications.
Leveraging the 300mm RF SOI process, 8SW delivers significant performance, integration and area advantages with up to 70 percent power reduction and 20 percent smaller overall die size compared to the previous generation. The technology enables superior LNAs (low-noise amplifiers) switches and tuners by supplying higher voltage handling and a best-in-class on-resistance (Ron) and off-capacitance (Coff) for reduced insertion loss with high isolation. The optimized RF FEM platform helps designers develop solutions that enable extremely fast downloads, higher quality connections and reliable data connectivity for today’s 4G/LTE Advanced operating frequencies and future sub-6GHz 5G mobile and wireless communication applications.
“GF has now delivered more than 40 billion RF SOI chips for the world’s smart devices, and this latest generation of RF SOI technology is another proof point that we’re poised to meet accelerating global demand for solutions that deliver seamless, reliable data connectivity everywhere,” said Christine Dunbar, vice president of RF business unit at GF. “The mobile market continues to favor RF SOI, and GF’s industry leading, 8SW process in 300 mm manufacturing is specifically designed to help our clients take advantage of more frequency bands that will deliver ultra-reliable communications across high-band LTE and future 5G applications.”
“We are proud to support GF’s new advanced and differentiated 8SW technology on 300mm RF SOI substrates and to continue our long-term strategic engineering and manufacturing collaboration enabling next-generation connectivity solutions,” said Dr. Bernard Aspar, EVP, Soitec. “We are ready to deliver the 300mm RF SOI substrates in high volumes to meet GF clients’ growing market demands.”
“SEH congratulates GF on their 8SW platform. SEH believes 300 mm RF SOI products are an important technology, whose time has come,” Nobuhiko Noto, General Manager of SOI Division at SEH. “SEH has been a long time partner on RF technology and looks forward to supporting GF for their future generations of RF technologies as well. We will continue to be a supplier to the 300 mm RF SOI market as it grows.”
GF’s manufacturing legacy and deep technical expertise in RF SOI process has resulted in more than 40 billion RF SOI chips shipped for next-generation RF-enabled devices.
8SW is manufactured on GF’s 300mm production line at Fab 10 in East Fishkill, N.Y., enabling clients to take advantage of advanced tooling and processes for faster time-to-market with industry-leading RF SOI. Qualified process design kits are available now.