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cpthollywood
Have any of you heard about a company named Opel Solar? They claim to have ...
StevePxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Gallium arsenide on a roll, says analyst
1/28/2011 11:29 AM EST
LONDON – The global market for GaAs devices was $4.9 billion in 2010, up 32 percent on 2009, according to market research firm Strategy Analytics.
Strategy Analytics believes the adoption of smartphones and data-centric networks will also drive growth in the GaAs market in 2011 and 2012 and on to reach nearly $6.1 billion in 2014.
That translates in to 5.5 percent annual compound growth rate that, if followed consistently would put the 2011 market at about $5.2 billion and 2012 at about $5.45 billion.
In 2010 revenue at leading GaAs suppliers RFMD, Skyworks, TriQuint, Avago Technologies, Hittite and Anadigics grew at between 24 to 52 percent. The companies saw a strong upward trend in quarterly revenues throughout the year.
"The rapid adoption of sophisticated multi-band, multi-mode smartphones is increasing the demand for GaAs power amplifiers, which is driving the entire GaAs device market," noted Eric Higham, director of compound semiconductor research at Strategy Analytics, in a statement.
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kinnar
1/28/2011 12:58 PM EST
Microwave Circuits, Optical Electronics and Solar Cells are applications that highly demands GaAs, and researches may lead use of GaAs in many other applications, so it will surely give a boost to the sale of GaAs. The use of microwave band is increasing since last few decades this is also one reason of heavy increasing demand of GaAs.
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amdman
1/28/2011 3:41 PM EST
What nm node are GaAs chips at?
Do people still think this tech may one day replace silicon?
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gaasmanwes
1/28/2011 9:14 PM EST
Bulk GaAs will never replace the 100's billions of dollars invested in Si - even if Si is only used as the substrate with a 3-5 or 2-6 active layer, it will always be "silicon" if only for PR reasons. GaAs has an excellent niche in price/performance with 0.25-0.5um (um!!) technology on 150mm wafers processed on reliable (and usually fully depreciated) cheap equipment.
Having worked in GaAs (after a decade in Si) in the mid-80's thru 2000, I can says that GaAs has found its niche in RF, high-efficiency amps and other similar apps. GaAs is now, for small-scale "analog" apps, actually cheaper than Si for a GHz RF application (yeah, hard to believe from the "technology of the future and always will be..."
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amdman
2/1/2011 1:53 AM EST
The AMD K7 started on 0.25um, 184mm2, 22,000,000 transistors.
Also the Intel P4, etc.
GaAs transmitters are an order of magnitude smaller dies, but it shows what can be done.
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beatnik_8983
1/29/2011 5:47 PM EST
From personal conversation Intel will move to III-V in future for CMOS. I believe major issues with III-V remain on the process side. From my research they are way better than Si at scaled lengths.
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agk
1/31/2011 12:05 AM EST
Smart phones sales had increased the opportunities for many elctronic component manufactureres.This segment RF power amplifiers were once upon a time very rarely heard and used only in microwave towers.Now could see this is used in every mobile handset.GaAs MOSFET's were found only in low noise front end amplifiers but now the technolgy has taken it to power amplifier levels!
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JPatH
2/2/2011 12:08 PM EST
beatnik,
re your comment: "Intel will move to III-V in future for CMOS", which III-V is complementary enough for CMOS? Last GaAs designs I worked with were MESFETs.
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StevePxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
2/4/2011 12:27 PM EST
JPatHanna,
The idea got my interest as well.
Looks like there are solutions.
I came across this paper, there are several copies on
line, but this one has the diagrams and photos.
http://english.ime.cas.cn/ns/es/201001/t20100120_50233.html
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cpthollywood
3/21/2011 11:23 PM EDT
Have any of you heard about a company named Opel Solar? They claim to have refined the GaAs technology for military and Nasa (i assume because of its resistence to radiationa, low heat, and energy consumption). They appear to be making a move to have mass markets bid for the technology for mobile and computing devices and so on.
I found it interesting you mentioned Intel planned on moving to this technology. Some of Opels Directors, are previous employees of Intel.
I don't know if you are able to find out any further truth to this, or could tell if they are moving in the right direction by viewing their patents? Please let me know if any of you have heard any updates.
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