Silicon TV tuners kick the CAN

7/16/2008

Until the most recent product announcements, silicon tuners have fallen well short of the performance offered by hand-tuned CAN tuners. But one company in particular seems to have focused on achieving the best possible silicon solutions for fixed TV tuners: Xceive.

Xceive is now selling its fourth-generation TV tuner product: the XC5000. The tuner is claimed to exceed the performance of traditional CAN tuners from companies such as Philips, Samsung, Thomson and Panasonic, blowing away other silicon tuners.

Xceive claims better performance in both digital sensitivity (greater than a 2-dBm improvement) and analog performance (a 2- to 5-dB improvement in SNR) over premium CAN tuners. (The XC5000 was fabricated using Jazz Semiconductor's 0.18-µm SiGe BiCMOS process).

Smallest Jazz process offers lean, green chips

6/20/08

Jazz Semiconductor has quadrupled the cutoff frequency that chips made in its SiGe fab can achieve, boosting its challenge to rival silicon and GaAs technologies. By cutting the size of its lithographic process from 0.35 µm to 0.18 µm the Newport Beach, California, company has boosted peak cutoff frequency, fT, from 50 GHz to 200 GHz. This enhances the advantage that devices made with the process have over RF CMOS, and can convert to energy efficiency improvements where high frequencies aren't needed. At the International Microwave Symposium in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 17, Jazz claimed that 0.18 µm SiGe fabrication can now provide a 30 percent efficiency advantage over silicon. Even with the new process in place, Jazz feels that GaAs retains a strong hold on applications at frequencies above 5 GHz. However it is confident it can compete below 5 GHz, and can more readily integrate different functions in CMOS. That includes the possibility of integrating a silicon transceiver, with an RF power amplifier, switch and logic functionality. This integration has been aided by a new process based on a layer of n-doped SiGe sandwiched vertically between two p-doped SiGe layers, christened 'vertical PNP'. .Vertical PNP does precision analog functions like data conversion and timing,. Mahlen said. .Having a vertical PNP to complement our high-speed, high-end NPN is very attractive, there's really nobody out there that is selling that today..

Jazz Announces SiGe BiCMOS Technology for Green, Energy Efficient Analog IC

6/17/08

Jazz Semiconductor recently announced its 0.18-micron Silicon Germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS platform (SBC18) that enables customers to deliver next generation green, energy efficient analog ICs. Jazz's modular process technology offers significant power and efficiency savings over standard CMOS. The SBC18 platform incorporates high speed, standard, and high breakdown SiGe Bipolar transistors, or SiGe NPNs, for low noise, high switching speeds and better linearity than can be achieved with a typical 0.18-micron CMOS offering, for applications where those features are required. For a given performance level, Jazz's SiGe NPN provides up to 30% power savings over standard CMOS for high speed precision analog circuits using Current Mode Logic (CML). Jazz also announced a Vertical PNP (VPNP) module for SBC18 which can be paired with a SiGe NPN to enable the design of analog circuits that require high voltage, complementary drive or amplification beyond the capability of standard CMOS. Jazz's VPNP showcases a low capacitance, high current drive, and high breakdown voltage that enable up to 30% efficiency improvements yielding power and die area savings for output stage and power applications.

Tower Semi strengthens analog-intensive mixed signal foundry service with Jazz acquisition

5/20/2008

Creating what the companies believe is the leading specialty pure-play foundry with trailing 12 month revenues of $443 million, the two foundries are coming together to offer specialty processes including CMOS image sensors (visible and non-visible), radio frequency (RF CMOS, SiGe and BiCMOS) and power management (CMOS and BCD). With operational facilities now spanning the globe with three fully owned fabrication facilities in the US and Israel, along with an ownership interest in a fab in China, Tower believes this is a significant opportunity to boost its revenue and realize as much as $40 million in annual cost savings through synergies of the combined businesses. .We are confident that we will realize significant benefits and synergies, including a comprehensive process portfolio which expands our addressable market and fuels a growing and more diversified customer base with highly differentiated product platforms,. commented Russell Ellwanger, CEO of Tower, in a statement.

Tower Semi buys Jazz Technologies

5/19/2008

Expanding its efforts in the specialty foundry arena, Tower Semiconductor Ltd. has signed a deal to acquire Jazz Technologies Inc. The move will expand Tower's worldwide presence. In an interview, an executive from Jazz insisted that the merger makes sense. The technologies from Tower and Jazz are ''complementary'' -- and not competitive, said Chuck Fox, vice president of sales and marketing of Jazz. The companies bring together Tower's strength in CMOS image sensor, non-volatile memory and RF CMOS with Jazz's expertise in mixed signal, power management and RF. ''The acquisition creates economies of scale, which allows for improved margins and strongly complements our specialty process offering, transforming us into the leading specialty pure-play foundry,'' said Russell Ellwanger, CEO of Tower, in a statement.

Varactor libraries enable faster time to market

March 2008

The MOSVAR varactor model libraries in its 0.13 and 0.18-micron analog-intensive mixed-signal technology platforms target wireless and other communication products. The model improves simulation accuracy while reducing product development time.

The varactor model incorporates recent advances in MOS device physics and modeling and is compatible with the PSP MOSFET model. In addition, it provides MOS varactor specific gate current models and physical geometry and process parameter based parasitic modeling.

Richard Nakajima to manage Jazz Semiconductor's Japan business

3/11/08

Richard Nakajima of RF Design Services company Cubic Micro has been named as Japan country manager for Jazz Semiconductor. Mr. Nakajima will work from Cubic Micro's base in Japan and will provide sales, marketing and business development expertise to the specialist foundry's Japanese operations. 

"Richard Nakajima has an extensive background in foundry services and a record of high achievement," said Chuck Fox, VP of Sales and Marketing for Jazz Semiconductor. "I am confident his leadership and experience will help the sales team address our Japanese customers' needs more effectively, and drive Jazz's next growth phase in Japan's RF, power, and high precision analog markets."

BCD Process Enables 50 Percent Power Die Size Reduction

3/3/08

Jazz Semiconductor has developed enhancements to its advanced Bipolar CMOS DMOS (BCD) process platform including the addition of an ultra low Rdson scalable NLDMOS device enables up to a 50 percent shrink in die size in most power devices. The 0.18 µm BCD process adds the combination of high density 1.8-V digital CMOS with the higher voltage drivers required for highly integrated Power SOC designs. The high-voltage BCD process is available in scales from 0.5µ to 0.18µ with features including VIA stacking, thick top power metal (3 µm) for improved current-carrying capacity, ESD protection circuits, and triple well isolation.

Jazz Releases Advanced MOS Varactor Model Libraries for Wireless Products

2/11/08

Jazz Semiconductor recently announced the release of MOSVAR model libraries in its 0.13 and 0.18-micron AIMS technology platforms targeting wireless and other communication products. The new model improves simulation accuracy reducing product development time and is integrated as a standard component in Jazz’s Design Enablement platform that also includes the previously announced Jazz Inductor Toolbox (JIT) and X-Sigma statistical simulation suite.

Avnera Utilizes Jazz's 0.18-Micron RFCMOS Process for Wireless Music and Voice Chips

1/23/08

Jazz Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Jazz Technologies, and Avnera, a fabless semiconductor company developing the breakthrough AvneraAudio technology for wired-quality wireless audio, announced that Avnera utilized Jazz's 0.18-micron RFCMOS process (CA18), to develop its semiconductor chip technology for wireless speakers, microphones, headphones and headsets that solves the interference problems that have plagued wireless audio for decades.

The companies noted that Avnera's design approach, coupled with Jazz Semiconductor's process technology, has enabled a low-cost, high-quality and easy-to-use wireless audio solution that delivers CD-quality sound without interference and operates like a plug-and-play unit all on a single piece of silicon.

MEMS the word for timing chips
But MEMS startups must move before quartz-crystal giants roll their own

01/14/08

Today, quartz crystals provide the heartbeat for nearly every electronic system, with annual volumes approaching 10 billion units. Electronic circuitry alone cannot generate the precisely spaced pulses that keep gates in synchronization in digital systems, or the rock-solid oscillations that keep analog frequencies tuned. In this sense, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) represent the final frontier in microminiaturization--downsizing this necessary mechanical reference signal from the millimeter scale of quartz crystals to the nanoscale of integrated circuits. For now, SiTime is (one of the leaders) in microelectromechanical-system chips for timing applications and went into volume production last year with chips that are pin-for-pin compatible with the quartz-crystal oscillators that today sell in the billions of units annually. SiTime is a well-funded fabless CMOS chip maker using foundry Jazz Semiconductor for the SiT8002.

SEE Archived "In the News" from 2007