GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced that its silicon germanium (SiGe) offering, 9HP, is now available for prototyping on the company’s 300mm wafer manufacturing platform.
GF has been manufacturing high-performance SiGe solutions on its 200mm production line in Burlington, Vermont. The migration of 9HP, a 90nm SiGe process, to 300mm wafers manufactured at GF’s Fab 10 facility in East Fishkill, N.Y., establishes a 300mm foothold for further roadmap development.

"GF’s 9HP is specifically designed to provide outstanding performance, and in 300mm manufacturing will support our client’s requirements for high-speed wired and wireless components that will shape future data communications," said Christine Dunbar, vice president of RF business unit at GF.

SiGe BiCMOS technologies are designed to support the growth in extremely high data rates at microwave and millimeter-wave frequencies for the next generation of wireless networks and communications infrastructure, such as terabit-level optical networks, 5G mmWave and satellite communications (SATCOM) and instrumentation and defense systems. The technology offers low-current/high-frequency performance with improved heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) performance and up to a 35 percent increase in maximum oscillation frequency (Fmax) to 370GHz compared to its predecessors, SiGe 8XP and 8HP.

Client prototyping of 9HP on 300mm at Fab 10 in East Fishkill, N.Y. on multi-project wafers (MPWs) is underway now, with qualified process and design kits scheduled in 2Q 2019.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES has recently chosen to drop plans to advance its chip manufacturing process to 7nm. Instead, the company focuses in delivering optimized solutions designed for a wider customer base.