Freescale Ships More Than 30 Million High-Power RF Transistors in Over-Molded Plastic Packages.Milestone Underscores RF Power Leadership and Legacy of Packaging Innovation AUSTIN, Texas -- Less than ten years after introducing the industry's first RF power transistor housed entirely in plastic, Freescale Semiconductor Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. is an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focuses their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embedded and communications markets. (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :FSL FSL - Formal Semantics Language. A language for compiler writing. ["A Formal Semantics for Computer Languages and its Application in a Compiler-Compiler", J.A. Feldman, CACM 9(1) (Jan 1966)]. [Sammet 1969, p. 641]. )(NYSE:FSL.B) has shipped more than 30 million high-power Laterally-Diffused Metal Oxide Semiconductor See MOS. (electronics) Metal Oxide Semiconductor - (MOS) The three materials used to form a gate in the most common kind of Field Effect Transistor - a MOSFET. (LDMOS LDMOS Laterally Diffused Metal Oxide Semiconductor LDMOS Lateral DMOS LDMOS Lightly-Doped Drain Metal-Oxide Semiconductor LDMOS Lateral Diffusion Mosfet ) RF transistors in over-molded plastic packages. Freescale was the first company to fully exploit the advantages of over-molded plastic packaging for high-power RF devices, resulting in greater reliability, lower overall costs, faster manufacturing cycles and equivalent performance compared to conventional air cavity packaging. Today, Freescale offers more than 280 LDMOS RF power devices in over-molded plastic packages, with output power as high as 120W at 2 GHz. "Freescale was always confident that over-molded plastic-packaged, high-power LDMOS devices would gain significant market acceptance for their excellent performance and cost-effectiveness," said Gavin P. Woods, vice president and general manager, RF Division, Freescale Semiconductor. "However, we did not expect the acceptance rate to be so rapid, and I am gratified grat·i·fy tr.v. grat·i·fied, grat·i·fy·ing, grat·i·fies 1. To please or satisfy: His achievement gratified his father. See Synonyms at please. 2. to see that OEMs are using these devices in more and more applications." The path to plastic Plastic packaging technology had been deployed in semiconductors for more than 20 years when Freescale introduced the industry's first RF power transistor housed entirely in plastic. By this time, plastic packaging techniques had been proven viable, however, technical challenges remained for RF applications. The challenge to unseat conventional packages was formidable, since these traditional technologies exhibited no inherent limit to maximum junction temperature Junction temperature is the temperature of the actual semiconductor in an electronic device. In operation it is usually higher than case temperature, the temperature of the part's exterior. or operating frequency. At low frequencies and power levels, plastic-packaged devices could compensate for the losses incurred by the dielectric properties of the plastic encapsulant en·cap·su·lant n. A material used for encapsulating. . But at higher power levels, these effects were significant and had to be overcome in order to achieve the performance, reliability, and lower cost that plastic packages promised. After significant investments in testing and materials evaluation, Freescale engineers were able to minimize the adverse effects that occur when a transistor die contacts plastic. The result was a continuing stream of advancements, including the first plastic-packaged RF power transistor to operate above 2 GHz, and the first such device to achieve a continuous operating junction temperature greater than 200o C (392o F). The temperature breakthrough was the more technically significant achievement, since 200oC is the same temperature at which conventional air-cavity packages for high-power RF devices are rated. The 200o C junction temperature is also rated under continuous operating conditions rather than with short power pulses that are far less stressful to the device. After more than 3 million hours of testing using the most challenging standards-based test methods, Freescale's plastic packages have an estimated mean time to failure (MTTF See reliability. ) of nearly 2000 years, thereby making them well suited for the most demanding applications. With more than 30 million Freescale RF power transistors housed in over-molded plastic packages in the field, this packaging technology is market-tested and steadily evolving with respect to achievable power levels and operating frequencies. About Freescale Semiconductor Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. (NYSE:FSL)(NYSE:FSL.B) is a global leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer, industrial, networking and wireless markets. Freescale became a publicly traded company publicly traded company A company whose shares of common stock are held by the public and are available for purchase by investors. The shares of publicly traded firms are bought and sold on the organized exchanges or in the over-the-counter market. in July 2004. The company is based in Austin, Texas, and has design, research and development, manufacturing or sales operations in more than 30 countries. Freescale, a member of the S&P 500[R], is one of the world's largest semiconductor companies with 2005 sales of $5.8 billion (USD USD In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the U.S. Dollar. Notes: The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. ). www.freescale.com Freescale[TM] and the Freescale logo are trademarks of Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners. Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. 2006. |
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