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 …

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 …

In a recent press release, the SOI wafer leader Soitec said that chips built on its SOI wafers were found in over half of the smartphones and tablets in the market worldwide. 50%? That’s a lot! How do they figure that? The answer: RF. With all the talk right now about FD-SOI for application processors, …

Following the recent news that Soitec has more than doubled production of bonded silicon-on-sapphire (BSOS) substrates (a flavor of SOI) to meet increased demand from its strategic partner, Peregrine Semiconductor, MagnaChip has expanded production of Peregrine’s STeP5 UltraCMOS® technology-based RFIC product line. Peregrine and MagnaChip announced the final qualification and high-volume production ramp of the …

Soitec has more than doubled production of bonded silicon-on-sapphire (BSOS) substrates (a flavor of SOI) to meet increased demand from its strategic partner, Peregrine. This has enabled Peregrine to  reach production of more than two million units a day of its latest-generation STeP5 UltraCMOS® technology-based RF switches, found in the Apple iPhone 5 and other …

The IEEE is once again giving two of its most prestigious awards to some of the SOI and advanced substrate industry’s leading figures. There are few greater honors in engineering than the IEEE  Technical Field Awards (TFAs). And once again, people who work in advanced substrates are among the recipients of two major awards: the …

The 2011 IEEE SOI Conference, held in Tempe, AZ last week was not one to miss…but I did. Happily, I got the papers right away, along with observations shared by some of the folks who did get there. Highlights include excellent and insightful papers from ST, ARM, IBM, Intel, Peregrine and GlobalFoundries, plus many more that indicate …

In recent months, Soitec has inked deals with: • Peregrine for joint development and production of a new, bonded silicon-on-sapphire (SOS) substrate for RFICs; • and with Sumitomo for the development of engineered gallium nitride (GaN) substrates for applications like high brightness LEDs as well as electric power devices designed for hybrid and full electric …