NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR EXPANDS ITS CAPABILITIES BY DEVELOPING MULTI-LAYER CERAMIC MODULES FOR WIRELESS PRODUCTS

• Enables the highest integration of passive components and silicon into one package
• Modules are 1/4 size of current solutions
• Greatly reduces design and manufacture cycle time
• High performance wireless technology for next generation products

SANTA CLARA, CA September 5, 1995 -- National Semiconductor announced today that it's expanding its reach into the wireless market by developing multi-layered ceramic modules for RF products. This move was sparked by the company's $8 million funding from the Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) for development of advanced embedded substrate technologies. This is another demonstration of the company's intention to "move and shape information" in all markets.

The multi-layered ceramic modules will come from a technology known as Low- Temperature Cofired Ceramic (LTCC) which up until now, has been used primarily in military applications. National plans to commercialize this process and turn out cost-effective, high-performance products for the rapidly expanding wireless market.

"The marriage of silicon and ceramic is a revolution in radio design that will lead to a host of innovative wireless product applications in the future," said Chris Tubis, director of Wireless Communications at National.

In the wireless communications market, every system requires transceivers which consist of active devices (Silicon, GaAs, monolithic or discrete), passive devices (capacitors, inductors, filters, etc.) and interconnect/assembly/test material. According to National's estimates, the wireless silicon market will grow to $30 billion by the year 2000 with another $30 billion in passive devices and interconnect material. "This expansion into LTCC means National can now compete in each of these segments and revolutionize nearly every wireless market," said Tubis.

The LTCC technology is revolutionary in that it embeds all of this functionality onto one multi-layered ceramic module, thus marrying ceramic and silicon. Because of the difficulties of integrating passive components onto silicon, LTCC is the best way to move to higher levels of integration and miniaturization.

What this means is that current wireless solutions will shrink to less than a quarter of their current size. True miniaturization will now be possible, limited only by the designers imagination for "Dick Tracy-like" wireless communicators. "Soon, we will be delivering complete wireless solutions embedded in small ceramic packages, enabling our customers to design and manufacture products faster than ever," added Tubis.

Another advantage to LTCC is that it opens the market up to all manufacturers regardless of their design expertise. Now, since complete radios will be embedded in multi-layer ceramic modules (even those operating at 1.8 GHz and above), the manufacturer need only lay down the part on the board and connect it to the external components to have a working system. This saves National's customers time and resources.

In addition to this improvement in manufacturability, LTCC technology is much easier to design with. Designs for the multi-layered modules can be assembled using a "design library" similar to Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). Through the use of advanced CAD systems and modeling specifications, prototypes can be developed in a matter of weeks as opposed to months for silicon.

Typical applications for this type of technology will be for cellular and cordless phones, testing devices, hand-held personal communicators, mobile radios, cable television set-top boxes and other communication devices.

The LTCC manufacturing facility is located in Newport Beach, California and is the only fully automated line in the United States. National recently purchased the ceramic manufacturing plant from Hughes Aircraft Company. Terms of the purchase included transfer of Hughes personnel to the employment of National Semiconductor. National will use this facility for high volume, cost-efficient, commercial production for the wireless communications market.

Final research and development on the LTCC technology will be completed and full commercial production is expected to begin in summer of 1996.

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