STMicroelectronics supplies billions of components for Starlink
Over the past decade, the collaboration between STMicroelectronics and SpaceX has produced billions of co-designed products – used in millions of Starlink user terminals in addition to over 10,000 Starlink satellites.
Starlink now serves more than 8 million users worldwide, with coverage in over 150 countries, according to the a press release. The satellite network provides broadband connectivity for residential and business customers using a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites.
STMicroelectronics said its engineers in France and Italy have worked with SpaceX on the design of key chips, which are manufactured at ST facilities in France and Malta and packaged and tested in Malaysia. The collaboration has focused primarily on BiCMOS semiconductor technology used in Starlink’s phased-array antennas.
The companies said the technology supports high-speed connectivity and large-scale manufacturing of user terminals. SpaceX currently produces more than 20,000 Starlink terminals per day, shipping hardware to customers globally. ST said its components have been critical in enabling production at that scale.
ST also supplies semiconductor products used in Starlink satellites, including the latest V3 satellites, which the companies said provide more than 1 terabit per second of fronthaul throughput.
STMicroelectronics said it developed a new manufacturing process with Starlink as lead customer around PLP (panel level packaging) technology to meet the very challenging requirements in terms of volume and quality at competitive costs. The scaling of ST’s PLP operations has already enabled a delivery run rate of over 5 million chips per day to meet the fast ramp-up of Starlink’s operations.