29 July 2015

ST's SiGe BiCMOS technology chosen by European E3NETWORK R&D initiative for integrated E-band transceiver

STMicroelectronics of Geneva, Switzerland says that its BiCMOS55 55nm bipolar complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor silicon germanium (SiGe) technology has been selected by the European R&D initiative E3NETWORK ('Energy-efficient E-band transceiver for backhaul of the future networks') for developing energy-efficient, high-capacity transmission systems in next-generation mobile networks.

Rapidly rising mobile-data usage requires networks to support greater capacity and higher data rates, says the firm. This places new challenges on the backhaul infrastructure, accelerating the transition to advanced network architectures, such as Heterogeneous Network and Cloud RAN (radio access network), and higher frequency bands (such as the E-band, at 71-76 and 81-86GHz), where more spectrum is available to support faster data-rate channels.

To build these super-efficient mobile networks, equipment manufacturers need high-performance electronic components that combine large-scale chip integration, reduced power consumption, and optimized cost, says ST. The E3NETWORK project leverages the integration and power advantages of ST's BiCMOS55 SiGe technology, which delivers heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT) with a threshold frequency (fT) up to 320GHz in 55nm lithography. This technology allows the integration of a high-frequency analog section with high-performance, dense digital blocks such as logic, AD/DA converters, and memories.

E3NETWORK is designing an integrated E-band transceiver using ST's BiCMOS55 technology for front-haul and back-haul infrastructure, which enables digital multi-level modulations, highly focused 'pencil-beam' transmissions, and data rates above 10Gbps. The pencil-beam property facilitates a high degree of frequency reuse in the deployment of back-haul and front-haul links, while preserving the spectrum efficiency over the millimeter-wave interval.

An EU project within the Seventh Framework program, E3NETWORK brings together a consortium of companies including CEIT (Spain), Fraunhofer (Germany), Alcatel Lucent (Italy), CEA (France), INXYS (Spain), OTE (Greece), SiR (Germany), Sivers IMA (Sweden), and STMicroelectronics (Italy).

Tags: STMicroelectronics SiGe BiCMOS

Visit: www.st.com/web/en/about_st/bicmos.html