Date: Jan 15, 2012 Source: MDA (
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A partnership based on a technology derived from missile defense R&D may produce the highly anticipated monolithic chip for the next generation of cell phones. Specifically, the innovation, developed by Peregrine Semiconductor (San Diego, CA), could lead to a "tunable" cell-phone chip based on silicon-on-insulator techniques.
Peregrine's technology has roots in SBIR work the company performed for MDA about a decade ago. The company went on to refine a sapphire technology platform—which has become significant to the cell-phone industry for producing an easier-to-manufacture chip with integrated functions, meant to handle the increasing number of duties performed by mobile wireless devices. Peregrine has developed an integrated circuit technology for numerous applications and has successfully branched out into the wider commercial world, reaching a benchmark sale of 500 million chips for its high-performance radio-frequency (RF) UltraCMOS™ chips in 2009.
IBM Microelectronics took note of Peregrine's growing expertise and partnered with the company. In May 2010, Peregrine and IBM entered into an agreement to develop and manufacture chips using Peregrine's UltraCMOS technology, Peregrine's proprietary method for silicon-on-sapphire.
