From: compoundsemiconductor.net
Partnerships with NREL on concentrated photovoltaics, and a variety of customers on high power RF are set to bring new business to the company's Greensboro fabs.
GaAs chip pioneer RF Micro Devices is readying two significant departures from its traditional business model, as it enters the foundry services and solar cell markets.
The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory's John Geisz holds an inverted metamorphic GaAs-based solar cell that claimed the world efficiency record in 2008. RF Micro Devices says that it will exploit NREL's "record-holding" technology. Will the company be the first to produce inverted metamorphic GaAs based cells? Credit: NREL.
In the biggest leap away from its staple handset chip manufacturing
market, RFMD has partnered with the US National Renewable Energy
Laboratory on photovoltaics.
“RFMD and NREL have agreed to collaborate on a commercially viable,
high volume process for manufacturing compound semiconductor
photovoltaic cells based on NREL's record holding technology,” said
Konrad Alvarino, general manager of RFMD's new technology
commercialization center.
The Greensboro, North Carolina, company will produce cells for use
in concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) systems in its existing wafer
fabrication facilities. It will release specific details of the
products it plans to offer over the next 12-18 months.
“RFMD has a history of transferring high performance compound
semiconductor technologies successfully, including TRW's HBT
process, and we manufacture the compound semiconductors reliably,
cost effectively and in high volume,” Alvarino said.
“RFMD's capabilities, combined with NREL's photovoltaic technology
leadership resulting from decades of research, will be leveraged in
our CPV cell development efforts.”
GaN foundry set for launch
Meanwhile, a high level of interest from customers wanting to
implement their own chip designs has caused RFMD to prepare a GaN
foundry service.
Wafers are already going through RFMD's internal research for
process qualification purposes in advance of an official launch at
June's MTT-S International Microwave Symposium in Boston,
Massachusetts. The foundry will run 3-inch GaN-on-SiC wafers in
RFMD's Greensboro fabs.
RFMD's GaN products and foundry services are attracting interest
from a broad range of markets, Bob Van Buskirk, president of RFMD’s
multi-market products group, told compoundsemiconductor.net.
This includes both defense and commercial customers, for
applications including radar, high power amplifier and high
performance broadband radio. Companies producing cable TV line
amplifiers and wireless infrastructure products for 3G, LTE and
WiMAX networks are also thinking about using GaN chips, Van Buskirk
said.
“We have been considering this new business area for some time and
are launching the service to coincide with the completion of our
internal, rigorous semiconductor process qualification,” he
explained.
These moves come as RFMD seeks a return to profitability, after
recording six consecutive quarterly net losses. In the quarter
ended March RFMD’s net loss nearly trebled to $49.6 million from
$17.2 million for the same period in 2008 (see related story RFMD
revenues fall further, but rebound predicted in current quarter).
Nevertheless RFMD chief executive officer Bob Bruggeworth remains
optimistic. “We are very confident in our ability to leverage our
expertise and our components and compound semiconductors in
multiple markets,” he assured investors when announcing the latest
results.
“We expect our strategic focus will serve us well whether the
environment presents unprecedented challenges as it has in the
current downturn or presents us new opportunities for growth and
profitability as it does today.”
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化合物半导体光伏电池及GaN代工，RFMD的新举措。
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