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Bipolar Advanced Silicon for Europe

Obiettivo

The goal of this project is to develop and fully integrate technology expertise design and CAD achievements in the deep submicron range.
Within the project, high performance bipolar technology is being developed. The aim of the project is to strengthen the European market position in the application areas of telecommunication and consumer electronics. Envisaged products, in these areas, require technology with improved speed, reduced power consumption, increased packing density and good analogue performance.

In TIPBASE preproduction technology has been developed with a superior packing density and a speed and low power performance, which is at least a factor of 2 better than typical production technology. This technology is required for envisaged applications in telecommunications and consumer electronics. Also, advanced device research is performed in TIPBASE.

The goal of the project is to develop and fully integrate technology expertise design and computer aided design (CAD) achievements in the deep submicron range. The target specifications for the process are:
emitter width (minimum) 0.5 micron;
gate delay 30 pS;
power delay product 25 fJ;
number of interconnection layers 3;
via pitch (minimum) 3.5;
cut off frequency (maximum) 25 GHz.

The complete process has been integrated and demonstrators and prototype circuits have been fabricated and evaluated in order to demonstrate the performances of the processes, notably for applications in the field of consumer and telecommunications electronics, fast data and signal processing, and high speed application specific integrated circuits (ASIC). These are common performance demonstrators to prove the achievement of the overall technical goals, and include common test structures, standard ring oscillators, yield capability for 100 K level, and a standard frequency divider, in addition to the following branch specific demonstration circuits: 10 K mixed analogue/digital array for 10 Gbit/s systems, 8 bit 350 MHz analogue to digital conversion (ADC), 14 to 20 Gbit/s multiplexor (MUX), 8 to 10 Gbit/s laser driver, amplifier plus prescaler input stage, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) 2.5 Gbit/s 16:1 multiplexor MUX DEMUX, a radio amplifier/mixer for mobiles, and a direct waveform synthesizer (with 1.6 GHz clock) producing sine, square and triangular waveforms up to 400 MHz. Silicon/silicon germanium epitaxial layers were grown at low temperature. The first results show that this method is close to being a production technique. The properties of these layers make them appropriate for integration in heterobipolar transistors.
The target specifications after three years are:

Process and specifications characteristics: emitter width (minimum) 0.5 micron, gate delay 30 pS, power delay product 25 fJ, no. of interconnection layers 3, via pitch (minimum) 3.5 cut-off frequency (maximum) 25 GHz

For comparison, at the beginning of the project pilot production processes worldwide and also at the partners were characterised by 1 to 1.5 micron emitter widths, around 80 to 100 ps gate delays, 3 interconnect layers at around 5 micron minimum via pitch, and maximum complexities of up to 40 000 transistor functions.

Very high speed bipolar technology fills a very important area between the lower performance but higher complexity per chip provided by MOS technology, and the extreme device speed but lower complexity per chip, higher cost per function, and limited availability of gallium arsenide. Bipolar technology is most suitable for high precision, high complexity and high-speed future information technology systems because its analogue features are best, its intrinsic speed is excellent, its transconductance (driving capability) is best, and availability as well as future perspectives are excellent. Higher data-processing rates, broader bandwidth communication and increased use of digital signal-processing techniques all demand the use of advanced bipolar technology.

Argomento(i)

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Meccanismo di finanziamento

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Coordinatore

PHILIPS GLOEILAMPENFABRIEKEN NV
Contributo UE
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Indirizzo
PO Box 80 000
5600 JA EINDHOVEN
Paesi Bassi

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Partecipanti (15)