TowerJazz has announced that Ensphere Solutions has chosen the foundry's 0.18-micron SiGe BiCMOS process (SBC18) for its fully integrated one chip optical transceiver IC (ESI-1002) targeting 10G data communication and storage area network applications. Now shipping in volume, the ESI-1002 supports rates from 1G to 12G and enables SFP+ modules to be designed with sub-1watt power consumption. Ensphere is leveraging the 0.18-micron SiGe offering that includes 177 GHz Fmax, a 0.18um CMOS transistor, and high density stacked 4.0uf/mm2 MIM cap. This process was chosen for its optimization for optical networking and storage solutions as well as wireless, wireline and tuner applications.

Ensphere Solutions' ESI-1002 is an optical transceiver IC that, together with a TOSA, ROSA and a simple external microcontroller, form a complete SFP+ module. It includes all the functionality for transmit laser control and supports both EDC and LIA modes on the receive side. The ESI-1002 can be used as a VCSEL driver directly. Its unique architecture for the laser driver allows for the lowest power consumption and uses a single 2.5V power supply. The ESI-1002's sub-1W power consumption and excellent EMI performance allow for system design with high port density.

"We continue to utilize TowerJazz as our foundry partner for their excellent support, easy access to their team and frequent shuttle runs during the manufacturing process," said Hessam Mohajeri, Ensphere's CEO. "For our ESI-1002 product, we required a specialty technology that allowed our transceiver to have very dense control circuitry which is not available in other processes. In addition, TowerJazz provided us with a high degree of reliability as the models and performance of the transistors matched the actual silicon."

"Customers like Ensphere use our high performance 0.18-micron specialty silicon process technologies to achieve rapid time-to-market for high speed networking applications," said Marco Racanelli, Senior VP and GM, RF and High Performance Analog Business Group, TowerJazz. "We look forward to maintaining our relationship with Ensphere in the future to provide a range of technology, features and consistent design environment to enable a competitive advantage for the design and manufacturing of their leading edge, differentiated networking ICs."