Status and direction of communication technologies - SiGe BiCMOS and RFCMOS

We present the status and direction of silicon semiconductor technologies targeted for applications such as wireless, networking, instrumentation, and storage markets. Various technological aspects for multiple branches of RF foundry technologies that are based on the standard foundry compatible CMOS node are discussed - SiGe BiCMOS HP ("high performance") tailored to high-frequency applications, SiGe BiCMOS WL ("cost performance") tailored to wireless/storage applications, and RF-CMOS optimized for low-cost consumer applications. Future opportunities and challenges for advancement in RF technologies are described in light of CMOS and SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor scaling. In addition, we discuss the maturity of SiGe BiCMOS by looking at the levels of integration and manufacturability. © 2005 IEEE.