AWR, TriQuint announce project jumpstart for new designers

Apr 10, 2008 4:37 PM

AWR and TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc. have launched a new program to provide first-time AWR and TriQuint customers with a low-cost introduction to the benefits of design and fabrication of gallium arsenide (GaAs) microwave monolithic integrated circuits (MMICs). Project Jumpstart offers designers an affordable, low-risk means of bringing wireless design prototypes to market using AWR’s electronic design automation (EDA) tools and TriQuint’s pseudomorphic high electronic mobility transistor (pHEMT) foundry process.

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According to TriQuint, project Jumpstart includes free process design kits (PDKs), a free 90-day lease for AWR’s flagship high-frequency design software, Microwave Office design suite, and a reduced-rate prototype development quickturn (PDQ) shared-wafer foundry run using TriQuint’s TQPED 0.5 µm pHEMT process.

AWR’s Microwave Office software encompasses all the tools essential for high-frequency design: linear and non-linear circuit simulators, electromagnetic (EM) analysis tools, integrated schematic and layout, statistical design capabilities, and parametric cell libraries with built-in design-rule check (DRC). The design suite provides innovative technology, flow and choice, delivering intuitiveness-of-use, openness, and interoperability for integration with best-in-class tools for each part of the design process.

TriQuint’s TQPED is a 0.5-µm optical gate enhancement and depletion pHEMT process that features three thick global metal interconnect layers and is well-suited for building switches, LNAs, power amplifiers, and integrated transceivers. The three metal layers are encapsulated in a high-performance interlayer dielectric and offer tremendous advantages for designers in its ability to provide a high level of wiring flexibility and simplicity of plastic packaging.