GlobalFoundries has announced the production release of its 130 nanometer (nm) complementary BiCMOS (CBIC) technology platform—its highest-performance silicon germanium (SiGe) technology to date. The 130CBIC platform, now available for design with its process design kit, is reported to offer performance with NPN transistors exceeding 400 gigahertz (GHz) ft/fmax and PNP transistors reaching over 200 GHz.
According to GlobalFoundries, this makes 130CBIC the only high-performance SiGe platform that addresses a broad set of markets, with explicit mention of data center applications, optical networking, wireless infrastructure, smartphones, satellite communications, and industrial IoT. In data centers, the company claims that the high-performance PNP transistors in 130CBIC enable new analog amplifier designs that provide high gain-bandwidth at lower power consumption for high-speed analog and optical networking.
The platform was developed and manufactured at GlobalFoundries’ Burlington, Vermont facility, and is optimized for radio frequency (RF) applications with an emphasis on reduced cost. For mobile devices, 130CBIC allows the creation of low-noise amplifiers that reduce current draw while maintaining an ultra-low noise figure, which can help with battery efficiency. The technology also supports advanced millimeter wave (mmWave) industrial radar applications at frequencies above 100 GHz.
“130CBIC represents a major milestone in our SiGe roadmap, setting a new benchmark for performance for the broad spectrum of high-growth markets that rely on advanced RF technologies for high-speed, energy-efficient connectivity,” said Shankaran Janardhanan, senior vice president of GlobalFoundries’ RF product line. “By combining industry-leading transistor performance with a low-mask count process, we’re opening new avenues of RF innovation to our customers across the board and enabling them to ramp new technologies to market faster.”
130CBIC is available for prototyping through the GlobalShuttle multi-project wafer program, with shuttle runs scheduled through 2025 and 2026. GlobalFoundries also offers reference designs through its GF Connect portal for engineers seeking to accelerate their design workflows.
Source: GlobalFoundries
