News Article
SOI at 65 and 45nm will be best positioned for market opportunities at 32nm
UMC and ARM announced that a test chip built with ARM SOI (Silicon On Insulator) libraries was taped-out successfully on UMC's 65-nanometer (nm) SOI process.
UMC and ARM announced that a test chip built with ARM SOI (Silicon On Insulator) libraries was taped-out successfully on UMC's 65-nanometer (nm) SOI process. The test chip consists of a set of ARM physical IP that uses a standard cell library, an I/O library and a single-port SRAM memory compiler. Semico Research recognizes semiconductor chip performance is increasingly pushing the limits of bulk CMOS. "High-performance chips offer the best near-term opportunities for SOI. Portable products are rapidly evolving into high-performance audio and video platforms that can utilize the speed and power advantages offered by SOI technology. Likewise, high-performance computing, communications and network applications are ripe for SOI technology in the next few years," said Jim Feldhan, president of Semico Research. "Semico believes companies that invest in SOI at 65 and 45nm will be best positioned for market opportunities at 32nm. ARM and UMC's venture into SOI is a significant step. It represents the first strong commitment of a Taiwanese-based foundry to SOI technology and will provide fabless and IDM companies additional market choices."While UMC has been developing SOI technology for many years, this particular advance began in January 2006, when UMC started a strategic partnership with Soisic. ARM has continued this partnership, after acquiring Soisic and partnering with Soitec in October 2006, and has begun to offer SOI libraries alongside its full range of physical IP for bulk CMOS processes. To help UMC derive an SOI version of its existing bulk 65nm CMOS L65SP, ARM provided the specific modules required to develop and qualify the process, including design rules, electrical characterisation of the devices and modelling for circuit simulation. "We are very happy with the result of this partnership, which has allowed us to become the first foundry to develop and offer a complete 65nm SOI solution," stated Lee Chung, vice president of Corporate Marketing at UMC. "We leveraged ARM's strong SOI expertise from the design support side along with our volume production 65nm process to quickly develop and bring this SOI process to the market. We look forward to offering this competitive technology to our foundry customers.""Strong demand from IDMs for the performance provided by SOI technology exists in the market today," said Tom Lantzsch, vice president, Marketing, Physical IP, ARM. "We anticipate that this new process, available through UMC, will enable leading fabless design companies to assess SOI technology and begin pilot projects. The next step will be to broaden the offerings, extend to more advanced process nodes and introduce a full foundry program similar to our offerings in the bulk CMOS space."
