Jazz Semiconductor, a leader in Analog-Intensive Mixed-Signal (AIMS) foundry solutions, announced its 0.18-micron Silicon Germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS platform (SBC18) enables customers to deliver next generation green, energy efficient analog ICs.

Jazz's modular process technology offers significant power and efficiency savings over standard CMOS. Jazz SBC18 provides a next-generation solution for ultra low power, integrated wireless and networking products that require high-performance bipolar transistors with high-quality passives together with high density logic.

Jazz's modular SBC18 SiGe BiCMOS platform incorporates high speed, standard and high breakdown SiGe Bipolar transistors, or SiGe NPNs, for low noise, high switching speeds and better linearity than can be achieved with a typical 0.18-micron CMOS offering, for applications where those features are required. For a given performance level, Jazz's SiGe NPN provides up to 30 percent power savings over standard CMOS for high speed precision analog circuits using Current Mode Logic (CML). In addition, SBC18 offers up to 200 GHz SiGe devices extending this power advantage to higher frequency applications such as automotive radar.

Jazz also announced a Vertical PNP (VPNP) module for the SBC18 SiGe BiCMOS process that can be paired with a SiGe NPN to enable the design of analog circuits that require high voltage, complementary drive or amplification beyond the capability of standard CMOS. Jazz's VPNP showcases a low capacitance, high current drive, and high breakdown voltage that enable up to 30 percent efficiency improvements yielding power and die area savings for output stage and power applications.

"Our customers take advantage of our modular 0.18-micron SiGe BiCMOS platform to produce the latest differentiated, highly integrated analog and mixed-signal products that are more energy efficient than previous generations," said Chuck Fox, vice president of sales and marketing, Jazz Semiconductor. "The SBC18 SiGe BiCMOS platform offers an optimal feature set to allow customers to integrate complex transceiver and power amplifier functions on a single die, significantly reducing IC power consumption over standard CMOS technology."

The advanced SBC18 process platform is supported by Jazz process design kits, low power digital libraries and memory compilers, RF/analog modeling suite, and PCM-based models, to provide users with precise circuit performance simulations and comprehensive, silicon validated design techniques.