To All,
A good article about future Gaas technology,HBT
February 09, 1998, Issue: 1095
Section: Communications
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TRW sees chance in LMDS
Crista Souza
Silicon Valley- TRW Space and Electronics Group is hoping to build a presence in the consumer communications market using a chip technology once considered too exotic and high end for mainstream applications.
And the group's commercial opportunities are about to become even broader, as the U.S. telecommunications industry prepares to launch cellular-like Internet services later this year that will require equipment designed to operate in very high frequencies.
TRW said its heterojunction bipolar gallium arsenide (GaAs) technology is a natural fit for this emerging wireless network, known as Local Multipoint Distribution Services (LMDS), because HBT was designed for and used for many years in high-performance military systems.
HBT GaAs chips are said to have linearity and power handling capabilities unmatched by their silicon counterparts, and they can be manufactured in packages smaller than competing MESFET components.
The technology is already in commercial use. Through a foundry arrangement with TRW, RF Micro Devices has built a business of close to $40 million, largely on sales of HBT power amplifiers to cellular-handset manufacturers. RFMD is now bringing its own fab on line using TRW's HBT manufacturing process.
"HBT as a technology has a tremendous amount of versatility and certain performance advantages which RFMD has been able to exploit in cellular and PCS applications," said Bob Van Buskirk, executive director of TRW's GaAs telecommunications products unit in Redondo Beach, Calif.
Now TRW plans to expand HBT to commercial markets that RFMD is not pursuing, such as fiber-optic data communications, Gigabit Ethernet, ATM, and the emerging LMDS. To prepare for this commercial thrust, TRW has quintupled its manufacturing capacity over the last three years, with 70% of it dedicated to producing commercial devices. The company is currently developing power amplifiers and digital components to enable LMDS base-station and subscriber equipment.
LMDS is a cellular-like communications system that uses millimeter waves to transmit data and voice over the 27.5-GHz to 28.65-GHz and 31-GHz to 31.3-GHz frequency bands.
On Feb. 18, the Federal Communications Commission will begin auctioning blocks of spectrum for LMDS deployment in selected areas in the United States.
Similar services are being deployed in Canada and Europe. Analysts estimate that LMDS equipment for the U.S. market will begin to appear in four to eight months, and services will become available as early as the fourth quarter.
LMDS will enable telecommunications service providers to offer Internet services, cable TV, competitive local telephone service, or all three without having to install a wired infrastructure or lease trunk lines from other telecommunications operators.
But chip technology will be the key to making LMDS services cost-competitive with fiber, cable, and wired solutions, according to Van Buskirk.
"People want to move more signals at faster speeds and over longer distances," he said. "Silicon is having a hard time moving all those bits efficiently."
Hiram |
