News: Suppliers
21 October 2021
IQE forms strategic partnership with GlobalFoundries
Epiwafer and substrate maker IQE plc of Cardiff, UK has begun a long-term strategic collaboration with GlobalFoundries (GF) of Santa Clara, CA, USA (which has operations in Singapore, Germany and the USA) to develop gallium nitride on silicon (GaN-on-Si) technologies for mobile and wireless infrastructure applications that should result in a GaN-on-Si offering at GF’s Fab 9 facility in Burlington, Vermont, using wafers supplied by IQE.
Due to its unique material properties, gallium nitride is the material of choice for high-power, high-frequency applications, and the global deployment of 5G networks has relied heavily on its use. Future 5G systems, including mmWave, will address significant increases in data across mobile and digital ecosystems, supporting further growth for GaN-enabled solutions. Working together, GF and IQE aim to pool their expertise and facilitate the development of crucial building blocks for current and future communications systems.
“IQE’s collaboration with GlobalFoundries marks a step change for us. It recognizes the quality of our market-leading GaN products and demonstrates how IQE’s ever-closer customer relationships can bring more innovative products to market, at scale,” says Dr Wayne Johnson, executive VP - Wireless & Emerging Products at IQE. “This is a unique opportunity to leverage the performance of GaN with the cost structure of high-volume silicon manufacturing. We look forward to working closely with GlobalFoundries over the coming years,” he adds.
“GlobalFoundries continues to lead with innovative and feature-rich solutions for 5G,” claims Dr Bami Bastani, senior VP & general manager, Mobile And Wireless Infrastructure at GlobalFoundries. “Our collaboration with IQE will enable us to deliver differentiated gallium nitride on silicon solutions that enable next-generation connectivity and user experiences that will help enable our customers’ innovations.”
