Aug 24 2009
Jazz Semiconductor , a Tower Group Company (NASDAQ: TSEM, TASE: TSEM), today announced that Southwest Integrated Circuit Design (SWID), a fabless IC design company, selected its 0.35-micron SiGe BiCMOS process (SBC35) and models to develop their satellite tuner LW10039, a fully integrated RF tuner for DVB-S digital satellite receiver systems. The end products utilizing SWID's tuner are set-top-boxes (STBs) and mobile TVs to receive signals from a satellite. According to Strategy Analytics, the combined digital STB and mobile TV market is expected to grow from $334 million in 2009 to $630 million in 2012, a CAGR of 23.5%. Through this partnership, SWID has set a goal to become the major TV tuner supplier in China.
SWID utilized Jazz's SBC35 process, which includes high performance diodes. This enables lower leakage currents and higher breakdown voltage, reducing power consumption and increasing tuning range for much better VCOs. SBC35 also includes high-quality factor variable capacitors which are a key component in complex RF designs. The LW10039 incorporates a fully integrated wide band, low noise PLL frequency synthesizer, which provides LO signals. The LW10039 also has LNA, RFVGA, I/Q mixer, LPF, VGC and an IF output amplifier - all integrated in the same 28 pin QFP chip.
"The SWID team was very impressed by the tools and accurate simulation models offered by Jazz which enabled us to achieve first-time success," said Lin Fan, President of SWID. "Simply put, Jazz's process, models and tool kits are by far the best in the industry for RF IC designs. By utilizing these design enablement capabilities, we were able to reduce our design cycle time by five months."
"We are pleased to be working with a fast-paced company like SWID, helping them bring to market new RF products," said Dr. Marco Racanelli, Senior Vice President and General Manager, RF and HPA Business Group at Jazz. "SWID's circuit design excellence coupled with our design enablement capabilities and superior SiGe process technology enabled their RF tuner to be designed quickly, accurately and cost-effectively providing performance, time-to-market and cost advantages."