TowerJazz and Presto Engineering announce strategic collaboration for SiGe foundry customers

GSA Semiconductor Ecosystem Summit, European Microwave Week 2011, TowerJazz Global Symposium, NEWPORT BEACH & SAN JOSE, USA: TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry leader, and Presto Engineering, the leader in integrated test and product engineering services, announced a strategic collaboration to deliver comprehensive services for companies developing high speed communications products utilizing SiGe technology from TowerJazz.

The alliance between Presto and TowerJazz covers wafer-level and packaged part development activities, spanning the space from design characterization to volume production, probing and final test. Foundry customers of TowerJazz now have access to the full range of semiconductor services from the Presto Engineering Hubs located in Silicon Valley, Europe and Israel.

“We have seen a significant growth in design starts for high-speed communications devices, driven in part by expansion of 100 Gigabit networks and the shift to E-band wireless infrastructure systems. Time-to-volume production is key in these fast-growing markets and having a proven SiGe test and product engineering solution will be vital for our common customers’ success. We look forward to working closely with the TowerJazz foundry team to make that a reality,” stated Dr. Michel Villemain, Presto Engineering founder and CEO.

“Combining our leading position in SiGe process technology with collaborations such as the one announced today with Presto, provides our customers the ability to speed product development of new communication products,” said Dr. Marco Racanelli, senior VP and GM, RF and High Performance Analog Business Group. “Presto’s Hub locations in the US and Israel are also well-suited to our global footprint that now includes 8-inch fabs in the US, Israel and Japan.”

The demand for high-speed interconnects continues to exceed industry analyst expectations, according to Dell'Oro Group. As cited in their recent report, the adoption of 100 gigabit solutions is occurring faster than that of 40 gigabit, driving projected revenues to nearly $1 billion by 2013 and $2 billion by 2015.

TowerJazz’s enhanced SiGe BiCMOS technology is aimed at replacing GaAs components in high growth markets such as high speed communications. SiGe provides significant integration and cost advantage over GaAs with demonstrated performance of up to 200GHz as well as noise and power performance that is competitive with GaAs while offering as much as 40 percent lower die cost. Also included are CMOS options to enable mixed-signal and digital functions on the same chip further reducing cost of the complete system.

Presto offers TowerJazz customers comprehensive RF testing services in Ka-Band and E-Band, including both frequency and time-domain tests, noise, and power measurements, jitter, phase noise and bit-error-rate (BERT) measurements. The Presto Hubs complement their test services with test program generation, special probe technology development for RF applications, probecards and load boards realization.

Besides test, Presto Engineering offers comprehensive turn-key solutions including qualification (reliability testing for temperature, environmental and electrical stresses) both physical and electrical fault isolation and failure analysis, all the way to supply chain management.