Ultra thin and ready to go
The Soitec Group hasannounced that its 300mm ultra-thin SOI (UTSOI) wafer platform is qualified andready to support fully depleted (FD) device applications scheduled on theindustry’s CMOS roadmaps for 22nm and beyond. Soitec introduced its 300mm UTSOIwafer platform, fabricated using the company’s patented Smart Cut technology,at SEMICON West last year, and since then has been actively working on productoptions, process optimization, and internal and customer qualifications.
The latestbreakthrough is Soitec’s ability to manufacture SOI with extremely thintop-layer silicon (20nm) to a thickness uniformity tolerance of ±5 Å(angstroms) in high volume with high yields. The specific parameters of thefinal SOI substrate can be tailored to customer applications, and manufacturedwith the same yields and similar costs as the current generation of mainstreamSOI wafers.
FD SOI has been usedcommercially for many years, but mainly for niche applications. Now industryleaders are reporting the advantages of fully depleted SOI for mainstreamapplications. “On fully depleted SOI, we’ve demonstrated 25nm high-k metal-gatedevices with matching characteristics far superior to those obtained on bulksilicon,” reported Dr. Olivier Faynot, Director of Advanced SOI technologiesDevelopment at CEA-Leti. “As it eliminates the need to dope the channel region,FD SOI solves threshold voltage (Vt) variability challenges atcurrent and future nodes, while maintaining excellent Ion and Ioffcharacteristics and drastically reducing gate leakage current. With thisuniform ultra-thin film SOI substrate, Soitec is delivering a solution forsubstantially improving Vt control of the CMOS device.”
“UTSOI provides a solidfoundation for planar and ultra-thin body devices, giving designers the abilityto drastically cut power consumption and leakage while preserving performance.It simplifies the overall CMOS architecture, thus reducing the cost of ownershipbelow a bulk approach,” stated Paul Boudre, Chief Operating Officer of theSoitec Group. “We are fully prepared to support our partners in fine tuningtheir manufacturing process steps to meet ultra uniformity requirements, anddeliver maximum value from this ultra-thin layer advantage.”
