MACOM and STMicroelectronics Accelerate GaN-on-Silicon Support for 5G Wireless Network Buildouts

Wafer supply expansion to enable cost, scale, and industrialization of GaN-on-Silicon for the global 5G network buildout

Wide bandgap efficiency and gain to meet 5G antenna range and energy efficiency

Lowell, Massachusetts, and Geneva, Switzerland, February 25, 2019 – MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MTSI) (“MACOM”), and STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) (“ST”) today announced the 2019 expansion of 150mm GaN-on-Silicon production capacity in ST’s fabs, and 200mm as demand requires. The expansion is designed to service the worldwide 5G Telecom buildout. This builds upon the broad GaN-on-Silicon agreement between MACOM and ST announced in early 2018.

The global rollout of 5G networks and move to Massive MIMO (M-MIMO) antenna configurations is expected to create a substantial increase in the demand for RF Power products. Specifically, MACOM estimates there will be a 32x to 64x increase in the number of Power Amplifiers required. In turn, this is expected to more than triple dollar content over the course of a 5-year cycle of 5G infrastructure investment and thus drive an estimated 10x to 20x decrease in the cost per amplifier.

“Major base station OEMs understand they need wide bandgap GaN performance with transformational cost structures and manufacturing capacity to meet 5G antenna cost, range and energy efficiency targets in the field. By teaming with ST, we believe MACOM is uniquely poised to provide it all — performance, cost and high-volume supply chain,” said John Croteau, President and CEO of MACOM. “We anticipate that our joint investment at this early stage in bringing on more capacity positions for us to service up to 85% of the global 5G network buildout.”

“ST has built a strong foundation as a global leader in Silicon Carbide and we are now moving forward with RF GaN-on-Silicon, which will enable OEMs to build a new generation of high-performance 5G networks,” said Marco Monti, President of the Automotive and Discrete Product Group, STMicroelectronics. “While Silicon Carbide is ideal for certain power applications such as automotive power conversion, GaN-on-Silicon provides the necessary RF performance, scale, and commercial cost structures to make 5G a reality. With this move ST and MACOM aim to unlock the industry bottleneck and fulfill the demand for 5G buildouts.”

For more information on MACOM’s GaN-on-Silicon technology, visit: https://www.macom.com/gan

About MACOM:

MACOM enables a better-connected and safer world by delivering breakthrough semiconductor technologies for optical, wireless and satellite networks that satisfy society’s insatiable demand for information.

Today, MACOM powers the infrastructure that millions of lives and livelihoods depend on every minute to communicate, transact business, travel, stay informed and be entertained. Our technology increases the speed and coverage of the mobile Internet and enables fiber optic networks to carry previously unimaginable volumes of traffic to businesses, homes and Data Centers.

Keeping us all safe, MACOM technology enables next-generation radars for air traffic control and weather forecasting, as well as mission success on the modern networked battlefield.

MACOM is the partner of choice to the world’s leading communications infrastructure, aerospace and defense companies, helping solve their most complex challenges in areas including network capacity, signal coverage, energy efficiency and field reliability, through its best-in-class team and broad portfolio of analog RF, microwave, millimeterwave and photonic semiconductor products.

MACOM is a pillar of the semiconductor industry, thriving for more than 60 years of daring to change the world for the better, through bold technological strokes that deliver true competitive advantage to customers and superior value to investors.

Headquartered in Lowell, Massachusetts, MACOM is certified to the ISO9001 international quality standard and ISO14001 environmental management standard. MACOM has design centers and sales offices throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

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