Communication network

   According to a forecast report released by the World Association of Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS), the world semiconductor market will continue to grow in the future, and the reason why the global semiconductor industry can recover, the rapid development of the communications industry has contributed to the rapid growth in recent years, the demand for communication integrated circuit IC chips has increased substantially, and the global semiconductor industry has injected new vitality. The trend of triple play has strongly promoted the development of the chip industry, and the development of communication chips in the mobile communication, wireless Internet and wireless data transmission industries has begun to exceed the development of PC chips. IDC experts predict that communications IC chips, especially those supporting third-generation mobile communication systems, will become the largest application market for the global semiconductor chip industry in the early 21st century. According to Dataquest, an American international market research company, the global communication equipment market was 167.354 billion U.S. dollars in 1996. $213.279 billion in 1998; In 2000, it amounted to 257.462 billion US dollars. The average annual growth rate from 1996 to 2000 was 11.4%. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), by the end of 2000, the total value of the global communications industry will reach 1 to 1.2 trillion US dollars, and will exceed the total output value of the world's automotive industry for the first time. This figure shows that in 2000, due to the rapid development of the global communications industry, the annual revenue of the global communications industry will break through the trillion dollar mark, which will further stimulate the faster development of the global semiconductor communications IC chip industry. International Business Strategy A study shows that the global communications IC chip market sales will increase from $28.3 billion in 1998 to $90.4 billion in 2005. Communications will continue to be the fastest growing industry in the world in 2000. China's communication IC chip development in recent years is also very fast, according to a market survey and forecast released by CCID Microelectronics research Department, 2000 ~ 2003 China's communication class machine application IC chip market size will maintain a rapid growth rate, 2000 communication class machine IC chip market demand for 1.502 billion pieces, It is expected that by 2003, the market demand for IC chips used in communication machines will reach 6.877 billion pieces. In the semiconductor chip field at home and abroad, communication IC chips are developing in the direction of small size, fast speed, multi-function and low power consumption.

Analog Devices (ADI) has successfully developed the world's first fully RAM based baseband chipset for wireless mobile phones. The small, matchbox-sized SoftFone chipset enables mobile phone manufacturers and end users to easily customize and select features. This chipset has a competitive advantage because it consumes less power and costs less. The SoftFone chipset is based entirely on RAM, and GSM mobile phone vendors can use the common hardware platform to load different versions of the software to support a full range of handsets from the high end to the low end. ADI's SoftFone chipset went on sale in large numbers in early August. In order to further reduce the size of communication chips, scientists are developing a series of chips made of non-silicon materials, such as gallium arsenide (GaAs) chips, germanium (Ge) chips and silicon germanium (SiGe) chips. These non-silicon communication chips are smaller in size and can be used to make light, thin, short and small communication devices. In order to make the communication terminal equipment smaller and smaller, in the digital cellular phone, the core RISC processor forms part of a highly integrated subsystem. The baseband portion, or RF portion, typically integrates a RISC microcontroller, a low-cost DSP, keyboard, memory, screen controller, and connection logic. ARM's ARM7 TDM1 is well suited for this application, consuming only 1.85mW per megahertz and synchronizing its relatively low 13MHz speed with the microcontroller in the GSM900 system. The RISC core occupies only 4.9m2 on the chip and can operate at lower voltages, so the power consumption of on-chip memory is often lower than that of off-chip memory. ROM also consumes less power than SRAM. Where possible, the use of no-load mode to save more power. In general, a phase-locked loop must be included on the chip to provide the clock signal to the DSP. High integration is also widely used in DSP chips. In order to perform high level modulation and demodulation algorithms with small devices with low power consumption, monolithic algorithm ics containing DSP core circuits have been developed.

In the early years of the 21st century, with the continuous development of micronization process technology, after more use of 0.25μmCMOS process, the integration will be further improved, and the voltage and power consumption will be further reduced, so that the CPU core circuit for protocol processing can also be concentrated on a small chip. Texas Instruments(TI) recently launched the TMS320C6203 product, 250MHz, 300MHz two models, execution speed up to 2900MIPS, is the world's fastest DSP products. This chip integrates 7Mbits of memory, the largest memory integrated in a single movement DSP, in an 18m2 BGA package, which can save plug-in board/system space, and is suitable for 3G wireless base stations, telecommunications systems and network infrastructure equipment. Another effective way to miniaturize communication chips is to use more advanced lithography techniques in the semiconductor communication chip manufacturing process. Scientists form an image through a mask, use a lens to reduce the image, and skillfully use this projected light to project the outline of the chip circuit onto the photoresist coated with a layer of silicon. Shortening the wavelength of light and improving the photoresist material can etch the chip circuit into more detail and precision, resulting in a more integrated and smaller communication chip, and mobile communication devices using this chip will become more portable.