Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Gallium arsenide ICs: Malaysia's chip-making future?

Malaysia has been hosting the The Asia Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (asQED http://www.asqed.com/) earlier in August, and recently, International Society For Quality Electronic Design (ISQED) chairman Dr Ali Iranmanesh made the case for gallium arsenide (GaAs) chip manufacturing in the country. Speaking to David Tan of The Star in Malaysia (http://thestar.com.my/), Iranmanesh said that "cost over US$210mil to design and manufacture the gallium arsenide chips, compared with a couple of billion US dollars to make silicon chips."

Gallium arsenide chips can be sold at a 10% higher cost than traditional silicon chips, he said in the interview. Read the full story on the Star's website.

Malaysia isn't the only global region looking at gallium arsenide. Earlier this month, ElectroIQ.com reported that a Europe-wide consortium has taken up the challenge of making a significant impact on the power consumption of telecommunications and data networks, via new semiconductor materials. For more information, read Euro consortium targets telecom energy reductions via semiconductor material efficiencies

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