  There is nothing more interesting than competing technologies pursuing the same end product or application. In the blue corner, founded in 1985 and weighting in at close to 70 patents, please welcome the heavy-weight Anadigics from the GaAs camp. In the opposite red corner, please welcome the feather-weight challengers Black Sand Technologies and VT Silicon from the CMOS camp. All right, the above might be somewhat playful and exaggerated, but this does not mean that a real fight pitting Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) Power Amplifiers (PAs) vs. CMOS based PAs is not shaping up. Take for example the recent column over at EETimes titled "CMOS is the wrong technology for 3G handset PAs ," in which Mario Rivas, the president and CEO of Anadigics Inc., comes out swinging. His claims, paraphrased here for conciseness sake, are as follows: Today’s CMOS amplifiers are not capable of delivering sufficient linear output power to consistently overcome obstacles such as walls, ceilings and trees. Further, GaAs PAs can achieve close to 45 percent efficiency, implying that they are more efficient than CMOS based PAs. GaAs based PAs are more rugged and can deal better with changing environments conditions. And finally, GaAs technology has matured and issues are well understood, resulting in shorter design cycle times as opposed to new and emerging CMOS based implementations. Mario does concede that at some point CMOS based amplifiers might play a role, but not in the near term and not for 3G/4G applications.
  Now contrast his claims to those made by the CMOS camp. For example, Black Sand Technologies proudly claims in their most recent press release, which discusses their acquisition of CMOS PA intellectual property from Silicon Laboratories, that replacing GaAs PAs with CMOS based ones improves manufacturing yield, performance, cost, battery life, and call quality. Pretty much countering all the claims made in favor of GaAs by Mario above. Add to this claims from VT Silicon, a startup pursuing silicon based PAs based on Silicon-Germanium (SiGe), of highly linear performance and once again lower production cost. Add into the mix integrated control circuitry that allows for real-time performance adjustment and power management for the PAs, and ladies and gentlemen we have a fight on our hands! I will be the first one to admit that power amplifiers are absolutely not my forte but this does not preclude me from asking the following: Is Anadigics trying to protect their turf by touting the superiority of the GaAs solutions? Or, being a long time player in the PA space, are they simply utilizing their vast experience and knowledge and pointing out some of the limitations of the current CMOS based solutions. Conversely, are these startups overly optimistic in order to build hype and a market for their products? Will they be remembered as large on promises and short on delivery? Time will tell, but regardless it will be an interesting conflict to watch as it evolves.
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