Silicon Germanium Spins Cellular and Space Communication Networks

Silicon germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS technology, often simply called <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">SiGe</i>, is used for high-performance SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs, versus Si bipolar junction transistors) and high-quality passive devices on a CMOS platform (see <xref ref-type="fig" rid="fig1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Figure 1</xref> <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[1]</xref>). This combination offers better performance at lower cost than CMOS and III–V technologies and is able to address most demanding analog and RF applications, while benefiting from the advantages of SiGe HBTs and CMOS for digital functions <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[2]</xref>.