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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Spekulatius who wrote (84653)	10/29/2000 3:18:30 PM
From: Zeev Hed	Respond to of 132070

I like most VTSS, but mind you, I generally do not like GaAs companies (despite the fact that they have done quite well in the last few years). The main reason is that GaAs has an intrinsic dual problem, cost and yields. GaAs wafers will always be at least 10 times more expensive than Si (currently they are much more than that, but under idealized conditions, that is the best you could expect). To the best of my knowledge, they still cannot grow GaAs wafers that are completely defect free (the last I heard was still at 100 dislocation per cm square, but that might be old), and thus, intrinsically yields are going to be lower than in Si. The most important problem, however, is that apart of optoelectronic devices (where Si has "zilch"), in most other "high frequency" applications, were GaAs was supposed to shine, they are forced to act like Charlie Brown, namely "there is no problem so big you cannot run away from". Every time GaAs captures a new "higher frequency domain" to themselves, slowly but surely, with dogged determination, Si recaptures that domain by reducing features, by improving dielectrics etc. Thus forcing the GaAs guys to desert the domain just conquered and move to the next one. Here we are 20 years since GaAs has been declared the "semi material of tomorrow", and it still does not account for 10% of total chip shipments. Zeev