Cambridge, England: Design-consultancy firm Plextek recently redesigned two GaAs ICs for an unnamed major U.S.-based high-technology company. The reason is because the original devices, used in a large number of different boards and products, became obsolete and could no longer be sourced.
By turning to Plextek, the U.S. company said it avoided the expensive process of completely redesigning its various boards and products to accommodate a replacement IC. Instead, it could instead source direct drop-in replacements with no change to the performance specifications. Plextek previously provided GaAs IC design services to the company.
Leveraging its experience in the GaAs industry, Plextek selected a suitable commercially available process, design, and layout pin-compatible direct-replacement ICs. It also arranged packaging and test to ensure that the replacement ICs would be available in the required time scales.