IBM company has two factory - specific and general. The first factory can only handle a 200 mm substrate, but unlike the lines installed at the factory 300 mm was optimized for wafer processing in a fabrication process using a material such as germanium. The combination of silicon and germanium is well established as the base for the production of circuits operating in the radio frequency range and it was cheaper than used for the same purposes as gallium arsenide. Last year, IBM's factories were transferred to GlobalFoundries.
According to press release GlobalFoundries company is now available for customers new 130-nm process using silicon and germanium. Process technology SiGe 8XP replace the previous, represented by SiGe 8HP. Due to the reduction of technological standards and by developing improved bipolar geterotransistors maximum operating frequency could be increased by 25% to reach 340 GHz. Thus the new process is suitable for the production of a wide range of radio frequency solutions: automotive radars, satellite communications systems, base stations up to support the fifth-generation networks and other telecommunications equipment, which requires work in the radio frequency range.
The company also reported that the new process technology is optimized to create chips using the through-metallic compounds such as TSVs. This opens the way for the integration of RF modules to processors, microcontrollers, and to where they will be in demand. Finally, as a new process involves connections to use copper, which extends the temperature operating range of solutions at 25 degrees Celsius or 100 degrees in general.