• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Microcontroller Tips

Microcontroller engineering resources, new microcontroller products and electronics engineering news

  • Products
    • 8-bit
    • 16-bit
    • 32-bit
    • 64-bit
  • Applications
    • Automotive
    • Connectivity
    • Consumer Electronics
    • Industrial
    • Medical
    • Security
  • EE Forums
    • EDABoard.com
    • Electro-Tech-Online.com
  • Videos
    • TI Microcontroller Videos
  • EE Resources
    • DesignFast
    • eBooks / Tech Tips
    • FAQs
    • LEAP Awards
    • Podcasts
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • EE Learning Center
    • Design Guides
      • WiFi & the IOT Design Guide
      • Microcontrollers Design Guide
      • State of the Art Inductors Design Guide
      • Power Electronics & Programmable Power

So what’s all this compound semiconductor wafer stuff?

August 22, 2018 By Lee Teschler

David Danzilio from Wind Semiconductor sat down with us to explain some of the basics behind fabricating wafers in the compound semiconductor area. Compound semiconductors have a lot of commercial applications in optoelectronics. Many have a direct bandgap that makes them efficient light emitters. (As a quick review, the band gap is called direct if the crystal momentum of electrons and holes is the same in both the conduction band and the valence band — an electron can directly emit a photon. In an indirect gap that characterizes silicon and germanium, a photon cannot be emitted because the electron must pass through an intermediate state and transfer momentum to the crystal lattice.)

Win waferWind is said to be the world’s largest compound semiconductor foundry. Its products go into the wireless communications industry as well as the optical networks and defense industries. Chips fabbed on Wind wafers find their way into most consumer products and into the wireless networks that transport data and deliver it to the mobile user.

First the basics: A compound semiconductor is a single-crystal semiconductor material composed of two or more different elements. Some of the widely used compound semiconductors include GaN, AlN, InSb, and GaAs from the III–V element groups and CdS, ZnSe, and HgTe from the II–VI groups.

The most widely used way of creating circuits on compound semiconductor wafers is through metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE). It uses ultrapure metalorganics and/or hydrides as precursor source materials in an ambient gas such as hydrogen. But there are other fabrication techniques used as well. They include molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE), liquid phase epitaxy (LPE), metal-organic molecular beam epitaxy (MOMBE), and atomic layer deposition (ALD).

Compared with silicon semiconductors, compound semiconductors are far more expensive and much more difficult to produce. Compound semiconductor substrates that include silicon carbide (SiC), gallium arsenic(GaAs), gallium phosphorus(GaP) and gallium nitride are being used for LEDs. III-V compound semiconductor devices have an ability to function at higher frequencies, and the exploding demand in commercial broadband/wireless communication and optical communication technologies has led to wide application of compound semiconductor process technology in high frequency, high power, low noise, and optoelectronic products.

Danzilio says WIN’s technology team has substantial experience in GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) and high-electron-mobility-transistor (HEMT) monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) fabrication. He says the team is familiar with the latest developments in GaAs technology and will provide continuous research and development to meet technology requirements.

In addition to MMIC technology, WIN has also established optoelectronic device technology such as compound semiconductor lasers and photodiodes. The service embodies Epi-wafer growth, optoelectronic device fabrication, and device characterization.

Win also fabricates multi-project masks where multiple customers will submit their designs and essentially buy a quarter wafer, as a means of lowering engineering cost.

YouTube video

You may also like:


  • Million-mile drives on computers that don’t move

  • Inertial measurement units will keep self-driving cars on track
  • spirent
    How to test time-sensitive networks effectively
  • Enclosures for embedded
    Enclosures for embedded PCs and systems
  • alexa sdk
    “Alexa, get me an SDK”

Filed Under: FAQ, Featured Tagged With: FAQ, winsemiconductorscorp

Primary Sidebar

DesignFast

Design Fast Logo
Component Selection Made Simple.

Try it Today
design fast globle

EE Training Center Classrooms

EE Classrooms

CURRENT DIGITAL ISSUE

A frequency you can count on There are few constants in life, but what few there are might include death, taxes, and a U.S. grid frequency that doesn’t vary by more than ±0.5 Hz. However, the certainty of the grid frequency is coming into question, thanks to the rising percentage of renewable energy sources that…

Digital Edition Back Issues

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Subscribe to weekly industry news, new product innovations and more.

Subscribe today

RSS Current EDABoard.com discussions

  • Regarding Induction Heating From Low Voltage DC
  • [moved] Question to Forum moderators - When to start new thread
  • Help designing 1.6KW Isolated AC/DC with Constant Current Output
  • Variable Frequency and Amplitude Oscillator Circuit
  • Reducing switching noise in MOSFET inverter

RSS Current Electro-Tech-Online.com Discussions

  • Light Automation via mqtt
  • uc3843 Buck-boost
  • How to power up two stereo audio amplifiers from a single source of power supply
  • Nokia 5110 HW in Oshonsoft
  • Drill speed controller fault

Footer

Microcontroller Tips

EE World Online Network

  • DesignFast
  • EE World Online
  • EDA Board Forums
  • Electro Tech Online Forums
  • Connector Tips
  • Analog IC Tips
  • Power Electronic Tips
  • Sensor Tips
  • Test and Measurement Tips
  • Wire and Cable Tips
  • 5G Technology World

Microcontroller Tips

  • Subscribe to our newsletter
  • Advertise with us
  • Contact us
  • About us
Follow us on Twitter Add us on Facebook Follow us on YouTube  Follow us on Instagram

Copyright © 2022 · WTWH Media LLC and its licensors. All rights reserved.
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media.

Privacy Policy