In the three months following Peregrine Semi’s announcement of the latest version of its UltraCMOS® process technology, STeP8 for RF Front End ICs, the company has followed with a steady stream of news. (The UltraCMOS technology is an advanced RF SOI process leveraging bonded silicon-on-sapphire (BSOS) substrates from Soitec.) Recent announcements include: a collaborative sourcing …

For more than 20 years, Silicon-on-Sapphire (SOS) technology—an advanced form of Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) processing—has been used in semiconductor manufacturing. Recently, SOS in the form of UltraCMOS® technology has been designed into high-volume applications that have made it the technology of choice for several demanding RF applications. This technology combines a highly resistive substrate with CMOS …

At the recent DATE Conference in Grenoble (DATE is like DAC, but in Europe, alternating yearly between Grenoble and Dresden), STMicroelectronics, CEA-Leti & Mentor Graphics joined forces for a FD-SOI presentation organized by CMP and sponsored by Mentor. Here are some of the highlights (the complete presentations are all available from the CMP website). FD-SOI: …

SiTime, which leverages SOI for high-performance MEMS timing solutions, has entered the smartphone/tablet/mobile app market with the first MEMS oscillator in a chip scale package (CSP). SiTime’s solutions offer area savings of 85%, cut power by 50% and are 15 times more reliable, all of which enable smaller, lower power and longer lasting mobile electronics. …

Two important FD-SOI wins for STMicroelectronics have just been announced: The EETimes ACE Award for Energy Technology; Customers. The Energy Technology Award was presented at a ceremony for the 2013 Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards. It is given by EETimes and EDN, two of the most prominent trade-media sources in electronics. The ACE Awards …

Specialty foundry Altis Semiconductor will be a foundry partner for the IBM 180nm SOI technology. ALTIS will deliver high volume products starting Q2 2013 and will secure capacity increase for 2014 and beyond to address the IBM forecasted demand.  This foundry agreement addresses the next generation of consumer products, including as an example, the RF/SOI …

Peregrine has announced the latest version of UltraCMOS®  process technology—Semiconductor Technology Platform 8 (STeP8), which the company says enables unmatched performance in RF Front End ICs. STeP8 technology shows a 36% improvement in Ron Coff  performance over STeP5 technology announced just one year ago—dramatically improving the linearity, insertion loss, and isolation capabilities of Peregrine’s RFIC …

Specialty foundry TowerJazz says its latest RF SOI technology offers the industry’s best figure of merit for antenna switch and antenna tuning applications with Ron-Coff of only 217fs. The technology is driving FEM market share, quickly replacing GaAs implementations and has already been adopted by multiple customers worldwide with over 50 separate designs taped-in with …

RDA Microelectronics has begun volume shipments of its RDALN16 GPS LNA for use in Samsung’s 3G handsets deployed in Europe and emerging markets worldwide, such as South America. Developed on SOI, RDA’s GPS LNA is a high gain, low noise, small size amplifier ideally suited for GPS, Galileo and GLONASS applications in 2G and 3G …

Skyworks announced that its industry-leading Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) switching technology is now being used by European, Japanese, Korean and North American car manufacturers for advanced infotainment systems. Specifically, Skyworks’ solid state technology is enabling seamless low noise and broadband switching between audio, Blu-ray/DVD, navigation, cell phone and vehicle security display inputs as well as a variety …