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Technology Stocks : Vitesse Semiconductor
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To: Robert Sevchuk, sr. who wrote (178)9/2/1996 12:38:00 PM
From: SI-Shark   of 4710
 
Bob,
Better High Frequency / Microwave operation is to my knowledge
the only advantage that GaAs has over Silicon. In the past there was
a power advantage at high frequencies however this is no longer the case because routing capacitance dominates in the power equation. I think that GaAs might still have some advantages in desiging RF power amps but I'm not an expert in this area so I wont comment on this.

I expect to see Silicon LAN/WAN network chips in the 1-2Ghz range by the end of this year. There are at least 4 RFBICOMS fabs that I know of which have a process capable of attacking this market. I think that some of the 0.2u CMOS processes might even have a shot at the low end.

As for the PCS and 900Mhz bands there are already Silicon chip out there and lots more on the way.

Chip prices, thats anyones guess. RFBICMOS processes typically use upward of 20 mask, so they are not cheap chips to produce. I think that the big difference will be in the reliable yields that Silicon offers and the desire of the big semiconductor vendors to dominate this important market.

Anyway, it seems to me that it will take about 1 year before Si chips can steal sockets from VTSS and another 6 months before this starts to impact their GPM. So things look fine for the medium term but the long term will depend on new products and new volume markets in the 3-10Ghz range.

regards
James

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