Plextek had previously provided GaAs IC design services to the company and was approached again when this new requirement came to light. As a result of its detailed knowledge of the commercial GaAs industry Plextek was able to quickly select a suitable commercially available process, design and layout pin-compatible direct replacement ICs and arrange packaging and test to ensure that the replacement ICs would be available in the required timescales. In creating the redesigned devices Plextek identified and worked closely with US pure play foundry GCS and Cirtek, a packaging company based in the Philippines.
“Plextek’s vast experience in IC design enables us to source and redesign obsolete ICs with minimum disruption and help companies avoid an expensive and time consuming product redesign,” said Liam Devlin, Director of RF Integration, Plextek. In this case our replacement IC was not only able to drop in to the original product without disruption, but resulted in higher isolation and lower leakage compared to the part it replaced.”