industry news
Subscribe Now

GLOBALFOUNDRIES Announces Enhanced RF SOI Process Design Kit For Use with CWS’ SiPEX™ Design Solution

Enhanced PDK incorporates design productivity tool to further enhance high-performance RF SOI switches

Santa Clara, Calif., September 18, 2017 – GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced the availability of a new set of enhanced RF SOI process design kits (PDKs) to help designers improve their designs of RF switches and deliver differentiated RF front-end solutions for a wide range of markets including front-end modules for mobile devices, mmWave, 5G and other high-frequency applications.

GF’s advanced RF technology platform, 7SW SOI, is optimized for multi-band RF switching in next-generation smartphones and poised to drive innovation in Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Designed for use with Coupling Wave Solutions’ (CWS) simulation tool, SiPEX™, GF’s 7SW SOI PDK allows designers to integrate RF switches with other critical RF blocks that are essential to the design of complex electronic systems for future RF communication chips. Specifically, this new capability allows designers to improve RF simulation output by simulating a highly-resistive substrate parasitic effect across their entire design.

“GF leads the industry in RFSOI technology, and we are committed to providing our customers with design productivity solutions for our RF processes,” said Bami Bastani, senior vice president of RF at GF. “CWS’ SiPEX™ tool provides our customers with best-in-class correlation between simulated results and real world measurements, further optimizing the design layout to achieve efficiency and deliver differentiated RF front-end solutions.”

“This is great news for the RF design community,” said Brieuc Turluche, chairman of the board of directors and chief executive officer of CWS. “The integration of SiPEX into GF’s RF SOI PDKs is a major milestone to achieve first-time correct complex and optimized RF SOI designs for high-performing cellular, IoT, 5G and Wi-Fi communication chips.”

GF’s RF SOI technologies offer significant performance, integration and area advantages in front-end RF solutions for mobile devices and RF chips for high-frequency, high-bandwidth wireless infrastructure applications. CWS’ SiPEX accelerates the design of RF SOI switches by improving linearity simulation accuracy. It can also be effective in the design of low-noise amplifiers (LNA) and power amplifiers (PA), enabling designers to reduce their size to lower costs

SiPEX™ is available in the current release of GF’s 7SW SOI PDK. For more information on the company’s RF SOI solutions, contact your GF sales representative or go to www.globalfoundries.com.

About CWS

CWS is the leader in system-level interference analysis of complex designs incorporating RF and analog blocks. Currently, CWS offers two products: WaveIntegrity™ and SiPEX™. Based on a unique harmonic analysis approach, WaveIntegrity™ is used by chip architects and designers to drive the chip design floorplanning. It is also used by package and PCB designers to integrate the noise-related design constraints in the final chip operational environment. SiPEX™, already included in TowerJazz’s CS18 and STM’s H9 SOI FEM Process Design Kits, improves the linearity of RF SOI designs and accurately models and simulates critical RF functions for 5G and IoT communications. Founded in 2005, CWS’ offices are located in Paris, Grenoble, France and San Jose, CA, USA. More information about the company, its products, and services is available at www.cwseda.com.

About GF

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is a leading full-service semiconductor foundry providing a unique combination of design, development, and fabrication services to some of the world’s most inspired technology companies. With a global manufacturing footprint spanning three continents, GLOBALFOUNDRIES makes possible the technologies and systems that transform industries and give customers the power to shape their markets. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is owned by Mubadala Investment Company. For more information, visit http://www.globalfoundries.com.

Leave a Reply

featured blogs
Apr 2, 2026
Build, code, and explore with your own AI-powered Mars rover kit, inspired by NASA's Perseverance mission....

featured paper

Quickly and accurately identify inter-domain leakage issues in IC designs

Sponsored by Siemens Digital Industries Software

Power domain leakage is a major IC reliability issue, often missed by traditional tools. This white paper describes challenges of identifying leakage, types of false results, and presents Siemens EDA’s Insight Analyzer. The tool proactively finds true leakage paths, filters out false positives, and helps circuit designers quickly fix risks—enabling more robust, reliable chip designs. With detailed, context-aware analysis, designers save time and improve silicon quality.

Click to read more

featured chalk talk

Nexperia GaN Power Proliferating in All Things Motor Control/Drive
Sponsored by Mouser Electronics and Nexperia
In this episode of Chalk Talk, Art Gonsky from Nexperia and Amelia Dalton discuss the biggest challenges of electric motors and controllers and how GaN power solutions can help solve these issues. They  also investigate how silicon, silicon carbide and GaN power solutions compare and how Nexperia and NXP technologies can get your next motor control design up and running in no time!     
Mar 25, 2026
26,621 views