RFIC and MMIC Design

RF IC design and MMIC design (Microwave Monolithic Integrated Circuit design) are services that Plextek has been providing to its clients for over 10 years. In that time we have carried out the design of over 50 RFICs and MMICs using a range of Si and GaAs IC processes and foundries. We have experience of using foundries in Europe, the US and the Far East and have undertaken IC design using a wide range of semiconductor processes, including: SiGe, CMOS, InGaP HBT, GaAs MESFET, PHEMT and PIN diode. Our IC design experience covers frequencies from baseband (low-IF receivers with baseband demodulation) to mm-wave MMICs operating at frequencies up to E-band (71-76 GHz / 81-86 GHz). The photograph below left shows our dedicated RF On Wafer (RFOW) test facility situated in our labs in the UK.

Plextek's chip designers are from a commercial background with experience of taking IC designs from conception through to high volume manufacture and are aware of the issues associated with packaging, verification, validation, production test, yield and cost. We have carried out Si IC design for major Si vendors such as National Semiconductor. This has involved working with the IC design team at National Semiconductor on the development of a number of RF CMOS transceiver products. It included activities such as radio system simulation, AGC system design, demodulator design, active slicing, clock recovery design and the design of a diversity selection system. The layout to the right is one of these RF CMOS transceivers, which is now in high volume production with over 500 million parts shipped worldwide. For more details please download our transeiver IC design case study.

We have designed full custom GaAs MMICs for a wide range of applications, including mm-wave ICs for point to point and point to multi-point systems, broadband microwave ICs for ESM systems, multi-band microwave communications products and precision attenuators for instrumentation. We have experience of designing MMICs containing virtually all function blocks including LNAs, PAs, switches, mixers (single-ended, balanced and image reject), VCOs, limiters, phase shifters, switched attenuators, VVAs and frequency multipliers. The die photograph towards the top right of the page shows a 2-18GHz unpconverter MMIC fabricated on TriQuint's 0.25µm PHEMT process.

Our clients include major component suppliers, such as Sony Semiconductor and advanced system developers such as QinetiQ and Aeroflex. We are also able to re-design obsolete MMICs, or MMICs realised on obsolete processes, so that pad compatible components can be manufactured on commercially available foundry processes. Plextek is an independent third party design house for the following foundries:

GCS is a pure-play foundry offering PHEMT, InGaP and InP HBT processes. The two die below are Plextek designs previously fabricated by GCS. On the left is a U-NII band Power Amplifier that covers both the 5.2GHz and the 5.8GHz bands. The measured gain is around 18dB with a 1dB compression point of just under +26dBm. On the right is a 5.8GHz VCO that has a measured phase noise of -105dBc/Hz at 100kHz offset.

TriQuint Semiconductor offers the industry’s largest selection of GaAs and GaN foundry processes. Plextek has experience of designing MMICs on many of these processes. The photograph to the left show an array of mm-wave switche ICs and a broadband microwave limiter fabricated on TriQuint’s VPIN process. The image to the right shows a dual channel 2-18GHz distributed amplifier MMIC fabricated on TriQuint’s 0.25um gate length PHEMT process.

WIN was the world's first pure-play foundry to offer fabrication on 6" diameter wafers. Processes offered include 0.15µm gate length PHEMT and InGaP HBT. The photograph to the below left shows a 6” diameter wafer. The photograph to the below right shows an 18 to 40GHz double balanced mixer MMIC being RFOW test. It was fabricated on WIN’s 0.15um gate length power PHEMT process (PP15-20).

For more information on how you can make use of Plextek's IC design skills contact us.