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Peregrine Semiconductor

Peregrine Semiconductor is a supplier of the industry's most advanced RF and mixed-signal communications ICs which are ideally suited for the wireless infrastructure and mobile wireless; broadband CATV/DTV; communications infrastructure; and high-reliability markets. Manufactured on the Company’s proprietary UltraCMOS™ mixed-signal process technology, Peregrine products are uniquely poised to meet the needs of a global RF design community in high-growth applications such as WCDMA, EDGE and GSM digital cellular and mobile TV; broadband communications such as DTV/PCTV/DVR and telecom infrastructure; and in high-reliability applications such as industrial, automotive, military and satellite systems. Peregrine’s products feature monolithic integration and ease-of-development, which are essential to timely and cost-effective application design by our customers. Peregrine UltraCMOS devices are manufactured through strategic relationships with world-class CMOS foundries located in Australia, Asia and Japan. The Company, headquartered in San Diego, California, maintains global sales support operations and a worldwide technical distribution network.

Market focus

Today’s highly mobile society has created a market demand for high-performance, cost-effective RF capability.

From CDMA digital cellular and RIM devices, to CATV/DTV/DVR and other high-growth wireless broadband applications, engineers in the RF market space push to develop more efficient, less costly designs. As well, space and defense programs including satellites with rad-hard requirements, have become paramount to the safety and security of all nations. As these designs evolve, so too does the RF signal chain, which has long been seen as one of the more complex parts of the design…until now.

Peregrine’s unique, patented UltraCMOS™ silicon-on-sapphire process technology allows them to design and manufacture products for the mobile wireless and wireless infrastructure; broadband communications; space, defense and avionics markets with a level of RF performance that is unmatched in the industry.

UltraCMOS™ Technology

UltraCMOS™ mixed signal process technology is a proprietary, patented variation of silicon on-insulator (SOI) technology. It is the first commercially qualified use of Ultra Thin-Silicon (UTSi®) on sapphire substrates with high yields and competitive costs.

The greatest asset of the UltraCMOS process lies in its unprecedented ability to combine high-performance RF, mixed signal, passive elements, nonvolatile memory and digital functions on a single chip. Customers have validated the cost and performance advantage of UltraCMOS over competing mixed signal processes--GaAs, SiGe and bulk silicon CMOS--in applications where RF performance, low power, and integration are paramount. In addition, because UltraCMOS products are fabricated in a standard high volume CMOS wafer fabrication facility,Peregrine's products an their customers benefit from the fundamental cost effectiveness and high yields, scalability and integration of CMOS, while achieving the performance of SiGe and GaAs. In addition, since sapphire is a near perfect insulator, UltraCMOS-based products can integrate high quality passive devices directly into the ICs, offering unprecedented levels of RF integration and cost effectiveness.

UltraCMOS™ Process Technology Overview

The global wireless communications industry has entered the new millennium. The need for products and components that are smaller, more efficient and less expensive is greater than any time ever before. Monolithic integration has come of age.

Using its patented UltraCMOS technology, Peregrine has mastered the technique of processing Ultra-Thin Silicon (UTSi®) circuitry on an insulating dielectric sapphire substrate. With this technology, Peregrine is producing integrated circuits (ICs) that are expanding customer options by providing major advances in speed and power at a lower cost.

The UltraCMOS process is a patented silicon-on-sapphire technology (SOS) that has for years been recognized as a technically superior semiconductor vehicle reserved for highly specialized military and space projects. SOS was thought to be impossible to manufacture in commercial volumes at a reasonable cost. Overcoming these challenges without sacrificing the inherent benefits of the technology took several years of research and development, all now protected by dozens of patents. The UltraCMOS process is the industry’s first and only commercially qualified use of Ultra-Thin-Silicon (UTSi®) on sapphire substrates enabling the combination of high-performance RF, mixed-signal, passive elements, nonvolatile memory and digital functions on a single device.

This monolithic integration provides significant performance advantages over competing mixed-signal processes such as GaAs, SiGe, BiCMOS and bulk silicon CMOS in applications where RF performance, low power and integration are paramount. Additionally, because UltraCMOS devices are fabricated in standard high-volume CMOS facilities, products benefit from the fundamental reliability, cost effectiveness, high yields, scalability and integration of CMOS, while achieving the peak performance levels historically expected from SiGe and GaAs.

Products

Since its inception, Peregrine Semiconductor has focused its engineering resources on designing RF ICs which deliver best-in-class performance from antenna in to data out. The Peregrine UltraCMOS product portfolio achieves new milestones in monolithic integration, linearity, ultra-low power consumption and value, and showcases CMOS achievements including cellular handset switches and 13 GHz rad-hard prescalers.

Peregrine’s product portfolio is comprised of a complementary mix of products for the RF Wireless, Broadband RF, Space, Defense and Avionics markets. These high-performance devices address the mixed-signal functions of RF systems with unparalleled performance in linearity, broadband performance, scalability and integration. Monolithic integration is paramount to engineering unique product solutions, and only UltraCMOS™ technology provides the foundation upon which to deliver.

Manufactured on our revolutionary UltraCMOS™ technology, the Peregrine product portfolio is poised to meet the demands of a global RF design community – in high-growth applications such as WCDMA and GSM digital cellular, broadband, DTV, DVR and radiation-hard space, defense and avionics programs. UltraCMOS enables the combination of high-performance RF, mixed-signal, passive elements, nonvolatile memory and digital functions on a single device, offering high performance, low power, and monolithic integration.

Peregrine's Product Types