Xanoptix Unveils Hybrid IC Technology

MERRIMACK, N.H. -- Xanoptix, a leading innovator of high performance components for next generation data communications and computing equipment, today announced a breakthrough in chip integration: Xanoptix has developed a wafer scale process for three-dimensional stacking of silicon and compound semiconductors. The company’s Hybrid Integrated Circuit Technology creates devices that combine the wealth and variety of silicon chip designs with the advanced capabilities of other semiconductor materials, such as high-speed materials or optical semiconductors. Xanoptix’s Hybrid Integrated Circuit Technology creates components with lower cost and power consumption, vastly improved high frequency performance, and greater packaging density. ”The practical integration of compound semiconductor functionality with silicon integrated circuitry has been an elusive goal challenging semiconductor device researchers for over twenty years,” commented Clifton G. Fonstad, Jr., Vitesse Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT. “A manufacturable integrated circuit process that combines the unique performance of III-V and II-VI semiconductors with digital computational and memory prowess of silicon can enhance system performance over those made with conventional integrated circuits because it will allow designers to use, in one integrated chip, the best devices from multiple material systems and to integrate functions not available in any single material system.”Xanoptix’s process integrates thousands of devices in silicon or compound materials (such as GaAs or InP based lasers, detectors, and transistors) with a third-party silicon IC (such as transceivers, network processors, and DRAMs). The Silicon may be fabbed in any conventional silicon foundry. A series of integration and post-processing steps ensures the proper attachment of the stacked materials. “Creating three-dimensional, stacked structures from silicon or compound semiconductors through a highly manufacturable process is of great commercial importance,” stated James Norrod, Chief Executive Officer of Xanoptix. “It allows the use of low cost chip technology and mainstream silicon designs for applications that up to this point, relied on expensive specialty processes.”Xanoptix Inc.