News Article
STMicroelectronic Breakthrough in Integration Technology
STMicroelectronics semiconductor manufacturers unveil the first details of a breakthrough technology allowing capacitors to be intergrated.
The new technology is based on a class of material compounds with many different variations possible which offer outstanding advantages because of their very high dielectric constant. Depending on the particular material.
The integration of passive devices is of fundamental importance, especially in all nomadic applications where complex filtering and protection functions, which typically demand a large number of passive components such as resistors, capacitors and inductors, must be incorporated into equipment where PCB space is at a premium. For example, a typical mobile phone requires several hundred passive components, over half of which are capacitors. technology allows large numbers of passive components to be integrated along with active devices such as ESD protection diodes into a single structure that performs a specified filtering or protection function.
A continual challenge in this type of integration is the search for new materials that allow ever increasing values of resistance or capacitance to be integrated. In the case of capacitors, the dielectric constant of the material is the most important factor because the capacitance is determined by the surface area, which it is always desired to minimize, and the dielectric constant. STs new PZT technology represents a major breakthrough in integrating the higher value capacitors that are typically required for decoupling and low-frequency filtering purposes.
The company anticipates benefits for customers by enabling a new level of system partitioning optimization in terms of size, performance, cost and time-to-market.
To date, ST has used this technology for a number of customer-specific devices and will shortly introduce standard devices for the open market, when it will also release further technical details.
The integration of passive devices is of fundamental importance, especially in all nomadic applications where complex filtering and protection functions, which typically demand a large number of passive components such as resistors, capacitors and inductors, must be incorporated into equipment where PCB space is at a premium. For example, a typical mobile phone requires several hundred passive components, over half of which are capacitors. technology allows large numbers of passive components to be integrated along with active devices such as ESD protection diodes into a single structure that performs a specified filtering or protection function.
A continual challenge in this type of integration is the search for new materials that allow ever increasing values of resistance or capacitance to be integrated. In the case of capacitors, the dielectric constant of the material is the most important factor because the capacitance is determined by the surface area, which it is always desired to minimize, and the dielectric constant. STs new PZT technology represents a major breakthrough in integrating the higher value capacitors that are typically required for decoupling and low-frequency filtering purposes.
The company anticipates benefits for customers by enabling a new level of system partitioning optimization in terms of size, performance, cost and time-to-market.
To date, ST has used this technology for a number of customer-specific devices and will shortly introduce standard devices for the open market, when it will also release further technical details.
