Soitec Announces Industrial Readiness of Complete Fully Depleted (FD) Platform - Key to Higher Performance for Mobile Consumer Devices

SEMICON WEST TRADE SHOW, SAN FRANCISCO, July 13, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Soitec Group (Euronext Paris), the world's leading supplier of engineered substrates for the microelectronics industry, announced today that the company is ready with the Ultra-Thin Buried Oxide (UTBOX) extension to its Ultra-Thin (UT) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform, thereby providing a robust substrate solution for chip designers tackling the performance, power and density challenges of mobile consumer devices. Fully Depleted (FD) planar body transistors are now recognized as the right path on the CMOS roadmap for the 22nm generation and beyond. With FD planar transistor technology on UTBOX wafers, chip designers can enhance their usual design flows and techniques. High-volume capacity is available for the 22nm node at Soitec's manufacturing sites in France and Singapore.

"Soitec is ready with the UTBOX wafers for planar FD architectures: the infrastructure, the process maturity, yield and the capacity are all in place to support demand," said Soitec president and chairman, Andre-Jacques Auberton-Herve. "Industry leaders confirm that FD planar technology is the right choice for mobile consumer products, which need higher performance without compromising power. Our UTBOX offering shows the critical role our materials play as the starting point for energy-efficient, state-of-the-art electronics."

With an ultra-thin, insulating buried oxide layer, system-on-chip (SOC) designers and system architects can leverage standard techniques for attaining lower power and higher performance as needed by the target applications. The UTBOX option further complements the existing advantages of planar FD technology, which solves transistor variability issues, delivers the best device electrostatics, and enables SRAM to operate at lower supply voltages (Vdd). It is an evolutionary and highly manufacturable technology that offers simple processes and continuity of design tools, leading to a very cost-effective solution.

For FD planar to live up to its tremendous promise, the starting wafers must meet very stringent top silicon uniformity specifications. With ultra-thin top silicon thickness variation within a +/- 0.5nm maximum range, and a buried oxide layer as thin as 10nm, these wafers are in full compliance with customer requirements.

"FD SOI is the right technology at the right time. As the challenges to control bulk leakages become very expensive and unreliable, FD SOI offers a simple solution. Additionally, the fact that FD SOI is a planar and scalable technology with no history effects provides a seamless design transition. This is a powerful combination," said Horacio Mendez, executive director of the SOI Industry Consortium.

Soitec will exhibit in booth # 1333 in Moscone Convention Center's South Hall at the Semicon West trade show, July 13-15 in San Francisco.

About the Soitec Group:

The Soitec Group is the world's leading innovator and provider of the engineered substrate solutions that serve as the foundation for today's most advanced microelectronic products. The group leverages its proprietary Smart Cut(TM) technology to engineer new substrate solutions, such as silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers, which became the first high-volume application for this proprietary technology. Since then, SOI has emerged as the material platform of the future, enabling the production of higher performing, faster chips that consume less power.

Today, Soitec produces more than 80 percent of the world's SOI wafers. Headquartered in Bernin, France, with two high-volume fabs on-site, Soitec has offices throughout the United States, Japan and Taiwan, and a new production site in Singapore.

Three other divisions, Picogiga International, Tracit Technologies and Concentrix Solar, complete the Soitec Group. Picogiga delivers advanced substrates solutions, including III-V epiwafers and gallium nitride (GaN) wafers, to the compound material world for the manufacture of high-frequency electronics and other optoelectronic devices. Tracit, on the other hand, provides thin-film layer transfer technologies used to manufacture advanced substrates for power ICs and Microsystems, as well as generic circuit transfer technology , Smart Stacking for applications such as image sensors and 3D-integration. In December 2009, Soitec acquired 80% of Concentrix Solar, the leading provider of concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar systems for the industrial production of energy. With this acquisition, Soitec is entering the fast-growing solar industry; capturing value through the system level. Shares of the Soitec Group are listed on Euronext Paris. For more information, visit http://www.soitec.com.

Soitec, Smart Cut, Smart Stacking and UNIBOND are trademarks of S.O.I.TEC Silicon On Insulator Technologies.

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SOURCE Soitec