The Proliferation of Silicon Germanium

Abstract

SiGe has already penetrated into the III/V market by rf IC ́s in the 0.9-2.4 GHz range. SiGe technologies have a high reliability, operates also at low voltages and nevertheless it reveals 72% PAE @ GSM frequency, 60% PAE for a 3W DCS power HBT and 50% PAE for CDMA at 1.9GHz. Combined with flip chip technology TEMIC ́s SiGe1 process is well suited for rf power systems up to 6 GHz. For higher frequencies and due to performance pressure of pure Si from the bottom of the frequency scale and III/V devices from the top, the next generation: SiGe2 proliferates into III/V area in the 720 GHz range. SiGe2 technology includes three types of transistors on the same wafer, having 25, 40 and 70 GHz transit frequencies with 7, 4 and 2.5V BVCE0 corresponding breakdown voltages.