RFMD interview
customers in the final stages of their circuit design efforts to make sure that customer designs do not violate any in- house design rules or layout services, as documented in RFMD’s design kits. “However, while we offer a wide range of GaN-based proprietary products, we do not offer circuit design services for our foundry customers,” explains Van Buskirk.
Santana claims that his team will be even more flexible when it comes to MBE structures and profiles. In this case, so long as they can support the customization required, the engineers will be willing to help to develop epiwafer designs needed to develop a product. “We will be happy to engage customers in this technical dialogue.”
RFMD’s portfolio of multi-wafer MBE tools includes
reactors built by Veeco, Riber and VG
What is certain is that RFMD’s new venture will get off the ground. Over the years the company has had several inquiries and engagements for MBE products and services, including the ones that they are offering, and this interest will not diminish now.
A significant proportion of RFMD’s revenue from its new venture is likely to come from the sale of arsenic and phosphorous-based epiwafers. These structures can be grown on 4-inch or 6-inch GaAs substrates, which can either be supplied by the customer, or purchased from RFMD. “We do not have the capability for nitride growth, but beyond that limitation, we are open to any epi structure,” says Chris Santana, director of the company’s MBE operations. According to him, RFMD has experience in growing and developing many different types of structure, including metamorphic designs, BiHEMTs, MOSFETs and even optoelectronic material such as VCSELs.
RFMD’s introduction of a GaN-based foundry service in 2009 has provided a great stepping-stone for this year’s foray into MBE services. “We now have all the aspects of a full-service, commercial turn-key foundry in place – including purchasing and IP agreements, work-flow procedures, and web-based customer support processes – and we can quickly tailor those commercial business processes and systems to our MBE-based service,” explains Van Buskirk.
Customer services Although GaN and MBE foundry customers can just instruct RFMD to supply wafers to their specifications, there is more help on hand if they want it. For example, in RFMD’s GaN foundry, customers can tap into the company’s design kits that are supported by industry standard design software and device models. What’s more, it is normal for RFMD’s engineers to interact with
28
www.compoundsemiconductor.net October 2010
Any company weighing up the pros and cons of working with an epiwafer supplier will demand the protection of their intellectual property. RFMD can assure customers of this, and show them the plans put in place that draw on its previous foray into foundry services. “We have established robust firewalls within RFMD for our GaN- based foundry service,” explains Van Buskirk. “Our foundry service teams are separated from our internal development teams, and RFMD employees at large cannot access the IP or data for foundry services.”
There are times when customer-sensitive information has to be transferred to RFMD employees, but this is minimized, with technical data and information disclosed on a ‘need-to-know’ basis. When a customer wants to access design kits and models, they can do this through an external, web-based portal that allows them to see the status of their wafer fabrication orders.
Aside from IP issues, the big question for many customers is how long it will take them to get their epiwafers. Van Buskirk has some reassuring news for them: “We have the industry’s fastest cycle times, and expect to use that as a key performance discriminator in our foundry service.” Cycle time commitments are already in place for customers using RFMD’s GaN services, and they have a clause in these contracts entitling the customer to a discount if shipments are late.
Van Buskirk can also assure customers that they will not lose out if RFMD has a substantial hike in orders for its own GaAs chips. “We are committed to growing our foundry services, and we have the installed capacity to meet our internal needs and the needs of our potential external foundry customers.” In fact, this installed capacity is so large that it makes RFMD one of the world’s largest MBE, GaAs and GaN wafer production facilities, claims Van Buskirk.
The MBE facility at RFMD runs ‘24-7’, but it is only staffed from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Automation allows the MBE tools run through the night, with growth aborted if in-situ
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133