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To: Johnny Canuck who wrote (36739)	4/12/2002 5:09:04 AM
From: Johnny Canuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 68095

SiGe Semi Enters Optical Networking Market By Alex Romanelli, Electronic News Online -- Electronic News, 4/8/2002 With major companies rushing to get 10 Gigabit Ethernet products on the market, one company is taking a step back and servicing the more immediate OC-48 optical network of 2.5Gbits/sec. SiGe Semiconductor Inc. today entered the optoelectronics market with three optical interface ICs. The company specializes in silicon germanium (SiGe) components. Bill Cuming, director of marketing for SiGe Semi’s broadband business unit, said the company is focusing first on the 2.5Gbit/sec market because it provides an immediate source of revenue. The volumes shipping within the industry for 2.5Gbit/sec. parts are currently much higher than for 10Gbit/sec. parts, he said. This is not to say SiGe Semi is only focusing on 2.5Gbit/sec.; it does plan to have 10 Gigabit Ethernet parts in production within the next few months. "The 2.5Gbit/sec. market is very attractive to us because it provides an immediate income opportunity in a high-growth market," Cuming said. "In this area, the players are still being established. I think there will be a lot of playing around in 10G for awhile, so it does not worry me it is going to take a few extra months to reach the 10G market. If I’m there early, all that happens is that I have a customer base that spends an awful lot of time trying to get stuff to work instead of going straight from design into production and earning money. Some of our customers are saying they might prefer to have a quad 2.5Gbit/sec device than a 10G device today." SiGe Semi does not expect the deployment of 10Gbits/sec. networks to take off until next year. The company gained entry into the optical market by signing a licensing agreement with an undisclosed telecommunications company. SiGe Semi acquired non-exclusive rights to the company’s optical IP and exclusive rights to market 11 optical components. These consist of transimpedance amplifiers, limiting amplifiers, automatic gain control (AGC) amplifiers, laser drivers and laser modulator drivers. The devices are in various states of production, from design bench to in production, Cuming said. SiGe Semi also acquired the company’s lab, design and test equipment plus its optical engineers. Cuming said SiGe Semi also has access to the company’s existing customers. "The company chose to move out of this area and focus on its core business, which is not involved in chip manufacturing," Cuming said. "This is a very synergistic opportunity for our company, in the sense we already have an established company with production SiGe components on the market. We can leverage those skills, the infrastructure and the supply chains through the addition of these components." With these new components, SiGe Semi is going after the high-growth broadband and wireless access markets. The company already manufactures cable modem tuner chips, GPRS front-end receivers and 802.11a and -b power amplifiers. "We have horizontally integrated where it makes sense for SiGe technology," Cuming said. "We have taken each of the three PHYs and converted them to SiGe. Our customers like our strategy as they do not see us ever competing against them. So many chip manufacturers suddenly decide to build modules and end up competing against the module companies that they originally sold chips to. We are not willing to compete against our customers." The company promotes SiGe technology as being more reliable than gallium arsenide (GaAs) and providing higher performance than CMOS. SiGe represents an additional 10 percent to 15 percent in fab costs over BiCMOS but it provides lower jitter and higher speed signaling, Cuming said. SiGe also avoids the integration and stability problems of GaAs, he said. SiGe Semi’s components run at 3.3V, compared with typical GaAs devices running at 8V or very few at 5V, he added. The SE1030 and SE1031 TIAs are priced at $4.85 each in quantities of 10,000. The SE1230 AGC is priced at $14.50 each in the same quantities. All three devices in production now. A 10Gbits/sec. TIA is expected by the end of the quarter. e-insite.net