Compound Growth
The higher frequency operation, improved signal reception, better signal processing in congested frequency bands and greater power efficiency are seen as key advantages of the more expensive technology based on materials such as gallium arsenide, silicon germanium and indium phosphide.
Small-scale niche demand was transformed into high volumes in the late 1990s. Among the applications has been enabling wireless communications products to move to higher frequency, less congested bands and higher bandwidths.
IC Insights is expecting SiGe to display the strongest growth in demand reaching a 33% market share in 2007. One SiGe driver is its compatibility with the conventional silicon CMOS process. Second, by merging low-power high-density digital CMOS circuitry with high-speed SiGe hetrojunction bipolar transistors (HBT), highly integrated mixed-signal ICs for communications could result.