Research & Development
Picogiga™ R&D is our lifeblood. To stay at the leading edge and ensure our product and technology offering is state of the art and satisfy the most demanding customers, Picogiga International has implemented:
• A solid R&D team aiming to develop innovative Picogiga™ products and solutions
• A significant IP portfolio to ensure independence and protection of our core technologies
• A strong, worldwide network of cooperation with industrial and academic R&D labs
• An outstanding investment level in R&D (20 to 50% of our annual sales revenues)
Leveraging our proven experience growing epitaxial layers on gallium arsenide (GaAs) and other compound semiconductor substrates using MBE technology, Picogiga is now developing applications based on Soitec Smart Cut™ technology for compound materials. This will allow us to address new markets, which require specific materials solutions, based on engineered substrates and high-quality, epitaxially grown active layers. These materials include binary or ternary alloys of compound semiconductors epitaxially grown on various substrates such as Indium Phosphide (InP), Galium Arsenide (GaAs), Silicon Carbide (SiC), – Silicon (Si) or engineered substrates like Silicon on PolySilicon carbide (SoPSiC), all of which are being pursued for high-frequency electronic devices (such as mobile telecommunications, infrastructure networks, satellite communications, fiber optics networks and radar detection) and optoelectronic devices (such as LEDs).
Picogiga™ R&D activities (including pre-production volume and engineering samples) are performed on dedicated equipment such as the V90, V100 or R49. The production clean room also hosts the state-of-the-art production control and characterization equipment required to establish solid process baselines in order to ensure high-quality and reproducible volume production.
III-V RF R&D
The current focus of R&D for III-V Picogiga™ products targets three RF markets:
1. Gallium Nitride (GaN) – Dedicated to high power RF application, GaN has been under development at Picogiga since the mid-1990’s. Based on a patent filed by CRHEA and exclusively licensed to Picogiga in 2004, GaN on High Resistivity Silicon (HR Si) (2 to 4” diameter scalable to 150 mm) is our basic offering for cost-effective mid-frequency range solutions (up to 10 GHz). For high end applications (Defense or Telecommunications) we do supply GaN on Semi Insulating SiC substrates (3 and 4” in diameter). For better trade-off on performances versus cost, we have developped a unique solution (available in 2, 3 and 4” but scalable up to 150 mm): GaN on Smart Cut™ substrates (Si on Poly SiC).
Long term Roadmap includes more advanced solutions like growing GaN on GaN on PolySiC substrates or on GaN on Diamond.
2. Indium Phosphide (InP) – antimonides based HBT for 40 to 150 GHz applications (such as fiber optic networks or high speed connections).
3. GaAs HBT: an InGaP HBT product family has been developed using MBE in order to avoid the issues related to MOVPE technique (long term reliability and wake-up instabilities linked to H2 content of the layers). Applications include mobile handsets, radar power devices and wireless RF transactions (such as remote tolls).
R&D for Optoelectronic Applications
Combining our expertise in epitaxy of III-V materials and the Soitec Smart Cut™ technology to develop specific multilayer Picogiga™ substrates, an R&D program has been started targeting material solutions that will fullfill requirements of future optoelectronic devices.
New solutions integrating Smart Cut™ transfer and bonding technology, as well as applications enabling de-bonding of substrate layers, are currently underway.
Global Roadmap
