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High Frequency Tech Center

Brochures

Keysight

High Frequency Tech Center (HFTC)

Introduction

The High Frequency Technology Center (HFTC) in Santa Rosa, California, invents, develops, accesses and manufactures world-leading custom integrated circuits. This gives Keysight a powerful competitive advantage and provides Keysight customers with premiere measurement solutions. HFTC has a unique combination of compound semiconductor fabrication capabilities (13,000 sq. ft. class-100 fab) and world-class expertise in design, modeling, measurement, and microfabrication. HFTC’s ability to rapidly innovate and deliver the world’s best high frequency technology provides fundamental differentiation for electronic measurement products.

Core Technologies

The Tech Center offers a wide range of semiconductor technologies:

  • GaAsSb/InP DHBT (emitter CD of 1 µm, ƒT = 200 GHz). General purpose digital/analog, signal conditioning chip-sets for instrument frontends.
  • InGaP/GaAs HBT (emitter CD of 2 µm, ƒT = 70 GHz). General purpose digital/analog.
  • Solid State Switches (ultra fast settling). Up to 50 GHz switches and attenuators.
  • GaAs junction and Schottky diode processes (based on InGaP/GaAs HBT platform). Signal conditioning, mixers, multipliers, switches.
  • GaAs/InGaAs/AlGaAs pHEMT (i-line and e-beam litho; gate lengths of 250 nm to 120 nm, ƒT = 60 to 90 GHz). mm-wave LNAs, power amplifiers, switches.
  • GaAs FET (i-line litho; gate lengths of 350 nm, fT = 30 GHz). Used for microwave power amplifiers and switches.
  • GaAs Thermocouple devices (wet etched web). Power sensors for power meters.
  •  Next generation processes in development!

All semiconductor technologies are available with passive circuit elements (high and low value thin ilm resistors, metal-insulator-metal capacitors), through-wafer vias, and multiple levels of interconnect.

Technology Access

In addition to internal materials growth and implant, HFTC routinely accesses commercial vendors of novel semiconductor materials many of which were co-developed between HFTC and strategic suppliers.

HFTC also accesses IC foundry services for technologies that can provide differentiation for Keysight instruments and complement internal capability. These technologies include GaN, very high performance pHEMTs, MEMS switches and advanced interconnects.

Materials Growth

Keysight instruments offer outstanding performance that is often enabled by high speed/high frequency ICs built from III-V semiconductor materials – a core competency of the High Frequency Tech Center.

Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) is a precise way of growing advanced III-V semiconductors. Elements, from column III (Ga, In and Al) and column V (As, Sb) of the periodic table, are combined to produce: GaAs, AlAs, AlGaAs, InGaAs, InAlGaAs and GaAsSb semiconductors. In these III-V semiconductors, carrier velocities can be large and energy bandgaps can be engineered to optimize carrier transport and carrier confinement.

MBE growth takes place in an ultra-high vacuum (10-10 Torr) environment that allows pure molecular beams to propagate without collisions. Molecular beams are generated with heated elemental cells and focused onto heated GaAs or InP substrates.

Epitaxial, or crystalline, growth takes place at elevated substrate temperature of 450~600 °C and at approximately 2.8 Å/s. Individual shutters modulate the molecular beams and are capable of producing single atomic layers. Dopants (Si, Be or C) produce p-type or n-type semiconductor behavior. Our capabilities for MBE include:

  • One multi-wafer Veeco Gen200 (As)
  • One multi-wafer Veeco Gen200 (As, Sb) with in-situ hydrogen plasma treatment capability

Material Characterization Tools

Material growth is supported by a wide variety of characterization tools, including:

  • Rigaku SmartLab x-ray diffraction, reflection
  • Nanometrics RPM-blue production photoluminescence
  • Ultrahigh-sensitivity R&D photoluminescence and photoreflectance
  • Lehighton contactless conductivity mapping
  • 77 K and 300 K Hall measurements
  • Surface defect characterization
  • Phase-contrast optical microscopy

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