Agere Looks To Wireless Power Amp Market
The transistor technology uses two key innovations aimed at improving performance and reliability - the first resolves the issue of how to eliminate defects in chips when making ultra-thin silicon wafers and the other improves performance when amplifying wireless signals.
Thin chips conduct heat better than thicker chips, reducing heat build up. Agere has developed a proprietary wafer scale low cost, and high yield "die (chip) thinning" technique. The company claims to have eliminated chip defects that occur using other approaches. As a result, the transistor can be designed to be 30% shorter in length and are 50% thinner than all competing transistors, says Agere. Thinner, shorter transistors get rid of heat more effectively than thicker and longer transistors. The transistors achieve 10-15% low operating temperatures than all other competing products available, says Agere.
Further, Agere has developed transistors with reduced resistance and parasitic capacitance using a patent-pending, high-density, low resistance electrical connection technique. Reducing these factors creates transistors with higher gain and efficiency - key for wireless power amplifier applications.
The transistor process is a laterally diffused metal oxide semiconductor (LDMOS) technology. Agere plans to sell these transistors both in tandem with and separate from all the other components it sells for wireless base stations. Transistors are in sample quantities now with production quantities due in Q3 2003.
