News

11 July 2006

 

First commercial sSOI wafers for sub-65 nm processing

Soitec has introduced the industry’s first commercial line of strained SOI (sSOI) wafers for sub-65nm processing.

"This newest line of SOI substrates targets advanced applications in the network processing, computing, gaming and high-end wireless industries, where speed and ultra-low power are critical issues," said Andre-Jacques Auberton-Herve, president and CEO of Soitec. "In addition to enabling chipmakers to further amplify the performance and power advantages of their chips, our new sSOI wafers will serve as an extendible platform for the future."

Suresh Venkatesan, director of Austin Silicon Technology Solutions at Freescale Semiconductor, added: "Strained SOI technology is an excellent example of the types of innovation Freescale is incorporating into their transistor roadmap. While this technology is currently under evaluation for the 45-nm node – initially targeting networking and gaming applications - it could eventually help Freescale's customers create dramatically smaller and more powerful entertainment electronics and intelligent portable devices."

Soitec says interest in the new line of sSOI substrates is coming from customers that are seeking to increase electron mobility, while reducing gate leakage and power consumption. sSOI helps overcome the scaling issues associated with CMOS process-induced strain techniques and opens the door to bandwidth gap tuning. Currently, Soitec offers sSOI products for both partially and fully depleted device architectures. Due to its compatibility with existing SOI and CMOS processes, capabilities for FinFETs or Multigate FETs, mobility gains and future extendibility, sSOI is poised to play an important role for devices beyond 65-nm, says the company.

Customer demand has led Soitec to transfer its 300-mm sSOI platform from development into the first phase of production.

"Just as we did with SOI, we will ramp our initial production to meet the needs of early adopters followed by ramps to higher volumes as the mainstream market increasingly turns to this innovative substrate technology. In the meantime, we will focus on continuous quality improvements to meet our customers' evolving technical requirements," Auberton-Herve concluded.

Visit: http://www.soitec.com