BOSTON, USA: RF Micro Devices Inc. announced the company has formed a gallium nitride (GaN) Foundry Services business unit to supply high-reliability, high-performance and price-competitive GaN semiconductor technology into multiple RF power markets.

The RFMD GaN Foundry Services business unit will leverage the company's industry leadership in gallium arsenide (GaAs) manufacturing capacity and cycle times, as well as a range of new customer services, to drive shorter time-to-market and minimize time between initial wafer order and final delivery.

RFMD is the industry's leading manufacturer of GaAs compound semiconductors. RFMD's GaN manufacturing is interchangeable with its GaAs manufacturing and directly benefits from the scale and demonstrated expertise of RFMD's industry-leading wafer fabrication capability.

Bob Van Buskirk, president of RFMD's Multi-Market Products Group, said: "RFMD's Foundry Services business unit is providing GaN foundry customers access to RFMD's industry-leading compound semiconductor technology and production facility and the many benefits of RFMD's scale manufacturing, including reliability, uniformity, cycle time and quality. RFMD GaN is a breakthrough technology that can change the RF power component industry as a result of its superior linearity, bandwidth and RF power density. Additionally, RFMD GaN is a "green" technology enabling higher efficiencies than previously possible, thereby requiring less power consumption to achieve similar performance or superior performance at similar power consumption levels."

RFMD's offering of GaN foundry services is distinctive in the industry because RFMD operates the industry's largest GaAs fabrication facility (fab) and has supplied its customers billions of high-reliability, high-quality compound semiconductor based RF components.