During this summer and early autumn, France’s capital city, Paris, will host two important global events. The first of these is, of course, the Olympic Games, which will run from July 26 to August 11. Then, just over a month after the end of the Games, European Microwave Week (EuMW) will take place at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles conference venue.

Several changes have occurred in the French microwave industry since EuMW was last hosted in the capital in 2019.1 One of the most notable trends is the strengthening of the semiconductor sector under the support of the Chips Joint Undertaking (Chips JU), a multi-billion euro program that mirrors the U.S. Chips Act and aims to build up the European Union’s (EU) semiconductor capabilities while cultivating technological sovereignty.2 France also remains particularly strong in microwave subsystems for its defense and aerospace sectors.

RF SEMICONDUCTORS

Much of France’s semiconductor industry is focused in the Grenoble area. This area is located in the southeast part of the country, near the borders with Switzerland and Italy and it is home to the Crolles fabrication facilities of STMicroelectronics. Although headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, STMicroelectronics has several sites in France, including an R&D facility in Rennes and other facilities in Paris and Le Mans, as well as in Grenoble itself. STMicroelectronics manufactures LDMOS RF power transistors for mobile base stations and GaN-on-Si devices for 5G and 6G through its partnership with MACOM.

FD-SOI: A FRENCH SUCCESS STORY

Two years ago, STMicroelectronics was one of four leading semiconductor players to jointly announce their intention to define a next-generation roadmap for fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) technology. The other collaborators were Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Soitec and GlobalFoundries.

Figure 1 Physical properties of FD-SOI. Source: STMicroelectronics.

FD-SOI is a planar CMOS process technology that delivers the benefits of reduced silicon geometries while simplifying the manufacturing process. Featuring a tight electrostatic control at the transistor level and the introduction of an innovative power management technique, the technology is ideally suited for low-power, RF and mmWave applications. The physical characteristics enable the technology to offer the best performance, power, area, cost and environmental (PPAC-E) impact for mixed circuits that combine digital, analog and RF blocks. A cross-section of an FD-SOI transistor is shown in Figure 1.

CEA invented FD-SOI and was a keen advocate for its adoption within the Grenoble-Crolles ecosystem. There had already been a long-term R&D cooperation in place between CEA and the other three organizations. The benefits cited for FD-SOI technology include higher performance, lower power consumption and lower costs, as well as easier integration of additional features like RF connectivity, mmWave frequencies and security. The technology can address opportunities in automotive, IoT, 5G/6G and manufacturing 4.0 applications.

Following this agreement, STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundries announced3 their intention to create a new, jointly-operated 300 mm (12 in.) manufacturing facility adjacent to ST’s existing fab in Crolles. This facility will support multiple technologies including FD-SOI, and is targeted to ramp up to full capacity by 2026. Dr. Thomas Caulfield, president and CEO of GlobalFoundries and Jean-Marc Chery, president and CEO of STMicroelectronics, acknowledged the support of the French Minister of the Economy and Finance and his team, along with that of the European Commission, in helping to reinforce the region’s FD-SOI ecosystem. Chery further stated that the new manufacturing facility would support STMicroelectronics’ ambition to grow its revenue to more than $20 billion.

The program benefited from significant financial support from the State of France, representing an overall projected cost of €7.5 billion for CAPEX, maintenance and ancillary costs. This is in line with the objectives set out in the European Chips Act for Europe to reach 20 percent of worldwide semiconductor production by 2030. The new manufacturing facility is expected to generate employment for around 1000 additional staff at the ST Crolles site and across its ecosystem of partners, suppliers and stakeholders.

Crolles-based Soitec is supplying the SOI substrates for its partners, building on its longstanding supplier relationship with GlobalFoundries.4 Soitec sees FD-SOI as a key technology for the range of markets it addresses. These markets include connectivity, automotive, IoT and artificial intelligence.

PILOT LINES

Continuing the FD-SOI theme, in June 2024, the Grenoble-Crolles area hosted the launch of the FAMES Pilot Line,5 an €830 million cross-EU project aligned with the Chips JU mission. CEA-Leti coordinates FAMES with participants across the EU.

The pilot line will develop five new sets of technologies, three of which are directly relevant to RF and microwave devices:

  • Two new-generation nodes for FD-SOI, at 10 nm and 7 nm
  • Several types of embedded non-volatile memories (OxRAM, FeRAM, MRAM and FeFETs)
  • RF components (switches, filters and capacitors)
  • Two 3D integration options (heterogeneous integration and sequential integration)
  • Small inductors to develop DC-DC converters for power management integrated circuits.

FAMES is supported by 43 companies across the value chain, including materials providers and equipment manufacturers, EDAs, IDMs, system houses and end users, as well as the semiconductor companies themselves. Figure 2 shows the geographical distribution of the consortium members across Europe.

Figure 2

Figure 2 Geographic locations of the FAMES Pilot Line Consortium members.

“By integrating and combining a set of cutting-edge technologies, the FAMES Pilot Line will open the door to disruptive system-on-chip architectures and provide smarter, greener and more efficient solutions for future chips. The FAMES project will indeed pay special attention to semiconductor sustainability challenges,” said Jean-René Lèquepeys, CTO of CEA-Leti.

Other French participants in FAMES are the SiNANO Institute in Grenoble, a non-profit network of researchers in the nanoelectronics field and Grenoble INP-UGA, the city’s polytechnic institute of technology that combines engineering and management schools.

OTHER RF SILICON ACTIVITIES

Another multinational semiconductor vendor with a large footprint in France is NXP. It has facilities in Toulouse and Caen and an R&D site in Mougins on the Cote d’Azur in the south. NXP specializes in secure connectivity solutions.

NXP Toulouse is located at the epicenter of France’s automotive, communications and industrial ecosystem in the area, which is also known for its aerospace industry. The Toulouse facility is a former Motorola/Freescale site with a 57-year history. It specializes in the design of RF semiconductors and sensors, with a particular emphasis on developing V2X communications for connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) and smart cities.

NXP Caen is located on the EffiScience Campus in Normandy. At this location, it is part of a cluster of related companies and research organizations. NXP Caen, which was originally part of Philips, is involved in R&D and IC design.

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTORS

In 2023, MACOM acquired OMMIC, one of France’s two compound semiconductor fabs. OMMIC had a 40-year history of providing GaAs, InP and GaN MMICs for the space market and offering professional foundry services. More recently, they had been operating a 100 nm GaN-on-Si process for higher-volume opportunities in 5G and 6G infrastructure. MACOM has now established its European Semiconductor Center on the site in Limeil-Brévannes near Paris. It is dedicated to developing semiconductor technology and continuing to fabricate MMICs to support applications in space, telecoms, aerospace and defense. Products available from MACOM’s European Semiconductor Center include MMICs covering DC to 110 GHz, offered as bare die, tabbed and packaged devices. The main product categories are PAs, LNAs, wideband amplifiers and core chips for both transmit and receive chains in phased array antennas.

France’s growing position and reputation in the semiconductor industry are encouraging an increasing level of investment from outside the country, either by acquisition, as in the case of MACOM and OMMIC, or through the establishment of local design centers. Viper RF France is an example of the latter trend. Viper RF is a U.K. company that specializes in the design and supply of GaAs and GaN MMICs and microwave modules between 1 GHz and 150 GHz. In 2021, Viper RF established a wholly-owned French subsidiary in Cesson-Sévigné, near Rennes, to offer non-ITAR solutions aimed at the French and European markets.

France’s other main compound semiconductor fab is United Monolithic Semiconductors (UMS). UMS, which is a joint venture between Thales Group and Airbus, has facilities in Germany as well as in Villebon, Paris. The latest product introduction from UMS is the CHA6354-QQA, a three-stage monolithic GaN HPA with up to 4 W of output power over a frequency range of 27.5 to 30 GHz. This device also includes a SPDT switch at the output. The HPA provides a linear gain of 27 dBm with a power consumption of 12 mA at a drain voltage of 25 V. The circuit is manufactured on a mature GaN-on-SiC HEMT technology and is particularly suited for satcom uplink and 5G applications. The input and output are internally matched to 50 Ω and contain integrated ESD RF protection. The CHA6354-QQA is available in a standard surface-mount 28-lead QFN 5×4 RoHS-compliant package.

TEST

France also boasts considerable expertise in RF and microwave test capabilities. Hytem is a company with a 30-year history, having first been established in 1994. Located south of Paris, it designs and manufactures RF and microwave test systems and components, including attenuators, switch matrix systems and phase shifters, along with coaxial cable assemblies up to 40 GHz. These components find use in cellular, military, transportation and medical applications.

Spherea spun out of Airbus 10 years ago and has since made several strategic acquisitions, including NoiseXT. In addition to NoiseXT’s range of high spectral purity signal measurement and generation instruments, they have a broad range of RF products. These include test benches for mission equipment used in air and land military systems and for TCAS and radar, payloads for drones that characterize antenna radiation lobes and analyze signals, an RF software suite for broadband spectrum analysis and monitoring, electromagnetic intelligence and analysis of radar signals.

END USE MARKETS

Overall, France’s RF and microwave market retains its traditional focus on the aerospace industry, much of which is concentrated around the Toulouse area.

Figure 3 The ASTRA 1P satellite. Source: © Thales Alenia Space/E. Briot.

Thales is the largest defense electronics company in Europe and is a leading supplier of ground, sea and air surveillance radars to armed forces, both within Europe and worldwide. Its subsidiary Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67 percent) and Leonardo (33 percent), was a prime contractor for the ASTRA 1P communications satellite that was successfully launched in June by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Thales Alenia Space was responsible for the design, manufacture and assembly of the satellite and its integration and testing. The wide-beam geostationary satellite has a launch mass of five metric tons, a payload that includes 80 Ku-Band transponders and is capable of broadcasting more than 500 television channels simultaneously. Figure 3 shows an artist’s rendition of the ASTRA 1P satellite.

Safran Electronics & Defense is another French company in this sector. They specialize in avionics, helicopter controls and UAVs. Earlier this year, Syrlinks, a Safran Electronics & Defense company based in Rennes, announced that it would equip the latest generation of LeoStella LS-300 satellite buses with its high performance N-SPHERE GNSS receiver for low Earth orbit applications. LeoStella is one of the leading manufacturers of small satellite constellations in the U.S.

N-SPHERE is a new-generation GNSS receiver designed by Syrlinks. It implements state-of-the-art positioning and synchronization techniques to achieve real-time precise onboard orbit determination (P2OD). It can be synchronized with various GNSS systems and offers high precision positioning of the order of 10 cm, making it suitable for use by international defense customers.

Dassault Aviation is a French defense and aerospace company that manufactures military aircraft, including the Rafale fighter and business jets such as the Falcon, as well as military drones and space systems.

Airbus is a multinational company employing 134,000 people, with almost 48,000 of them in France. Its headquarters are in Toulouse, with other French sites for aerospace and defense located in Elancourt and Sophia Antipolis. Two years ago, Airbus launched a high altitude platform station (HAPS) connectivity services business based on its HAPS technology platform, Zephyr, enabling it to provide low latency connectivity services from the stratosphere for telecommunications and Earth observation.6

Automotive electronics is a growing area of interest for microwaves and RF companies, especially as the production of CAVs begins to grow. France not only has several domestic vehicle brands, Citroën, Renault, Peugeot and Bugatti being the best known, but it also has a very strong supply chain in the automotive sector.

References

  1. H. Duncan, “Du Pain, Du Vin, Du Fromage, Des Microondes: EuMW En Route to the French Capital,” Microwave Journal, August 2019, Web:
    www.microwavejournal.com/articles/32656-du-pain-du-vin-du-fromage-des-microondes-eumw-en-route-to-the-french-capital.
  2. The Chips Joint Undertaking (Chips JU), Web: www.chips-ju.europa.eu/.
  3. “STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundries to Advance FD-SOI Ecosystem,” Microwave Journal, July 2022, Web: www.microwavejournal.com/articles/38521-stmicroelectronics-and-globalfoundries-to-advance-fd-soi-ecosystem.
  4. “GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Soitec Announce RF-SOI Wafer Supply Agreement,” Microwave Journal, November 2020, Web: www.microwavejournal.com/articles/34911-globalfoundries-and-soitec-announce-rf-soi-wafer-supply-agreement.
  5. FAMES Pilot Line, Web: www.fames-pilot-line.eu/.
  6. “Airbus to Deliver Connectivity Services Using its Leading Zephyr HAPS,” Microwave Journal, July 2022, Web: www.microwavejournal.com/articles/38575-airbus-to-deliver-connectivity-services-using-its-leading-zephyr-haps.