News

Cree Inc of Durham, NC, USA has announced the availability of a process design kit (PDK) for gallium nitride HEMT process technology, offering access to its GaN monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) foundry capability.

The Cree PDK, developed for use with Advanced Design System (ADS) from Agilent Technologies Inc, can enable RF and microwave designers to shorten the development cycle for MMICs used in high-power, high-performance electronic systems, resulting in a highly productive design flow, Cree claims.

The GaN PDK includes microstrip lines, discontinuities, scalable capacitors, inductors and resistors, pads, vias, airbridges and active devices (HEMTs) at multiple biases.

Cree reckons that its GaN foundry is the world’s first wide-bandgap MMIC facility, and claims that its GaN-on-silicon carbide devices have significantly higher power density, thermal conductivity and operating voltage than traditional gallium arsenide or silicon MMIC technologies. RF designers can use the PDK to create MMICs for high-power commercial wireless, wideband military, electronic warfare and radar applications.

“This kit allows our customers to take advantage of an industry-leading electronic design automation (EDA) technology that provides seamless schematic through layout interoperability with design rule checking (DRC),” says Jim Milligan, Cree’s director of RF and microwave products. “This integrated design flow can help accelerate our customers’ time-to-market by offering an accurate and productive work environment,” he adds.

“GaN is becoming more and more important in the industry,” says Anitha Swaminathan, foundry program manager with Agilent’s EEsof EDA division. “With Cree’s GaN process, our mutual customers have access to a powerful MMIC design solution in an integrated flow for leading-edge, high-power applications.”

See related item:

Cree launches first catalog GaN MMIC amplifiers

Search: Cree PDK GaN HEMT GaN MMIC Agilent

Visit: www.cree.com

Visit: www.agilent.com/find/eesof