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For RF and microwave applications, the quest for higher frequencies and higher power levels drives researchers to seek improvements in processes and device architectures.
Semiconductor technologies seem to race forward almost without impediment, especially in computer-related applications such as memory chips, logic, and processors. But those semiconductor processes geared for RF and microwave applications continue to advance steadily, even as the markets for these devices weaken, according to the latest set of presentations offered at the upcoming 2002 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM). Scheduled for December 8-11, 2002 at the Hilton San Francisco & Towers (San Francisco, CA), the conference features a host of quality presentations from around the world on emerging semiconductor processes of interest to RF and microwave designers, including silicon-germanium (SiGe), silicon-carbide (SiC), and gallium-nitride (GaN) device technologies.
Site first came to public attention approximately a decade ago at the IEDM, with announcements by Analog Devices (Norwood, MA, www.analog.com) and IBM Microelectronics (East Fishkill, NY, www.ibm.com) on high-speed data converters and other circuits fabricated with the process. Since that time, the IBM Site foundry has won more than dozens of believers (and customers) for its highfrequency Site process, which now boasts devices capable of transition frequencies (f^subT^s) well in excess of 100 GHz.
This past May, IBM announced the shipment of its 100 millionth chip made with SiGe, produced at the company's Burlington, VT facility. The chip was delivered to testequipment manufacturer Tektronix (Beaverton, OR, www.tektronix.com). This past summer, the company finalized the largest private-sector investment in New York State history with the completion of a $2.5 billion wafer-fabrication facility in East Fishkill, NY. Featuring 12-in. (300mm) wafers using low-k dielectrics, copper (Cu) interconnects, and silicon-oninsulator (SOI)-based transistors, the facility is fully automated (requiring some 20,000 sensors to track wafers), but will also add approximately 1000 technical jobs to New York's Hudson Valley. The LINUX-based facility is managed by approximately 1700 microprocessors running at 1 GHz with about 600 TB of memory. An internally developed software program known as SiView controls the manufacturing operations. According to New York Governor George E. Pataki, "I've been to Silicon Valley. They don't have the trees we have. They have earthquakes and their lights go out. The Hudson Valley is a much better place...