WiSpry, Inc., the leader in tunable radio frequency (RF) semiconductor products for the wireless industry, today announced that it is working with IBM (NYSE: IBM) to develop MEMS process technology and manufacture its tunable RF product roadmap.  This development includes WiSpry’s current generation of tunable impedance matching products, slated for production with a major tier-one OEM this fall, as well as future generations of highly integrated products for the entire mobile terminal front-end.

Enabled by proprietary micro-electromechanical machine systems (MEMS), WiSpry’s tunable RF devices deliver unparalleled  levels of performance; providing over 3dB of link resilience as well as up to 25 percent increased talk or web surfing time on a mobile device.  IBM’s standard 0.18µ process allows for WiSpry to integrate previously unintegratable functions, providing a smaller footprint and lowering BOM costs.

WiSpry’s monolithic integration is targeted towards high-growth applications such as 3G multi-mode, multi-band mobile wireless devices; broadband communications, and 4G LTE terminals and infrastructure equipment. 

IBM, a global leader in the development and manufacturing of semiconductors and process technologies, offers a rich roadmap of digital, analog-mixed signal and specialty process technologies. 

“Our joint development will enable handset OEMs to provide broadband tunability today, and provides a future-proof roadmap to monolithic tunable front-end devices,” stated Jeff Hilbert, WiSpry’s president and founder.  “Working with IBM provides access to high volume and high performance silicon and to a roadmap synergistic with ours.  In less than eighteen months, we have developed an integrated RF-CMOS MEMS manufacturing process, achieved first pass functional integrated CMOS/MEMS silicon and demonstrated product performance that exceeds our initial customer specifications. IBM’s execution has been flawless.”

“IBM has a rich portfolio of specialty technology solutions for the RF / wireless market, that we plan to deploy as we enable the WiSpry RF-MEMS technology,” said Michael Cadigan, general manager, IBM Microelectronics. “We believe that tunability will be a key enabler for the future of wireless front-ends and we support WiSpry’s vision of RF-MEMS solutions for this market.”