Gallium, a viable alternative to silicon, will soon be produced in India
INDIA has achieved a major break-
through in the production of gallium at
the National Aluminium Refinery,
Damanjodi, Orissa, with the setting up
of a pilot plant to produce 1,000 kg of
gallium per year. India has thus become
a potential source of this strategic raw
material for the world's semiconductor
industry.
A handful of chipmakers are striking
it rich by producing many new electronic products. Gallium arsenide
(GaAs), a semiconductor inaterial, is
inherently much faster than silicon.
Long considered a technology in search
of a home, GaAs found eager customers
among military and aerospace com
panies. These companies were willing to
pay double or mote to bypass silicon's
speed limits in microwave communication and radar. As the Cold War
ended, supercomputer companies
realised that GaAs chips could speed up
their next generation computers. To
counter this, Intel Corp reduced the
prices of silicon microprocessors so much that it was cheaper to boost speed
with multiple silicon chips instead.
GaAs is now finding its way into
civilian communications. As a result,
the gallium arsenide business is the key
element in the semiconductor industry.
GaAs' resurgence stems from an ever-
expanding range of applications.
Ericsson's latest cellular phones have
GaAs chips to boost performance.
Scientific'-Atlanta Inc, a leading producer
of cable- TVgear in the us, recently intro-
duced a system that harnesses GaAs to
add 50 channels. GaAs' speed might
thus even be the key to digital TV in the
future. The demand for GaAs is projected
to soar further as telecom companies
launch new wireless services. Beginning
this year, the market for GaAs should
start growing at 50-60 per cent a year.
The cost of putting up a GaAs manufacturing facility is also much less than that of a silicon chip plant: GaAs plants
are much smaller than the billion-dollar
sprawling facilities that produce silicon
chips.
The advantage that GaAs has always
enjoyed is speed, as it is five times faster
than silicon. It also has a higher signal-to-noise ratio. That means cell phones
can wander farther from their base
stations. As GaAs chips consume less
power, wireless models can either be
used with smaller batteries or offer
longer battery life.
To handle the surge in traffic in
wireless phones, cell phone frequencies
are being raised from 900 megahertz to
1.9 gigahertz in tomorrow's so-called
personal communication services. At
those frequencies, GaAs is essentially the
only choice.
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