IBM develops fifth generation SiGe process, claims phased array transceiver milestone
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IBM has developed its fifth generation of semiconductor technology targeted at high performance communications applications. The silicon germanium process, called 9HP, is designed to support increasing data rates in applications such as Wi-Fi, LTE, wireless backhaul and high speed optical communications.
According to the company, 9HP will be the first SiGe technology to offer a density equivalent to a 90nm cmos process. By doing this, it will enable high levels of integration, as well as higher performance, lower power and higher levels of integration than parts made on 180nm or 130nm SiGe processes.
However, because 9HP is compatible with IBM's 90nm cmos platform, clients will be able to port a range of IP circuit blocks and standard cell library elements. The SiGe process offers a transistor fmax of more than 350GHz and cmos fets working from 1.5, 2.5 and 3.3V supplies.
"Silicon-germanium is one of the key technologies that have enabled wireless operators to keep up with the explosive growth in data traffic generated from mobile handsets," said David Harame, IBM Fellow. "Before SiGe, the high performance chips used in base stations and optical links were built using expensive, esoteric processes. SiGe provides the necessary performance as well as integration and cost savings via its cmos base."
* Meanwhile, IBM has claimed a milestone by creating a phased array transceiver (pictured) that contains all the millimetre wave components necessary for high data rate communications and for advanced resolution radar imaging applications. The device is intended to tackle data bottlenecks in mobile communications applications and to allow radar imaging technology to be scaled down to the size of a laptop.
The packaged transceiver operates at frequencies ranging from 90 to 94GHz and is implemented as a unit tile, with four phased array ics and 64 dual polarised antennas. By tiling packages next to one another on a circuit board, scalable phased arrays of large aperture can be created while maintaining uniform antenna element spacing. The beamforming capabilities enabled by hundreds of antenna elements will allow for communications and radar imaging applications with a range of 'kilometres'.
Each of the four phased array chips in a tile integrates 32 receive and 16 transmit elements with dual outputs to support 16 dual polarized antennas.
