SOI: materials to systems

The continuing volume growth of portable systems with their increasing demand for better performance and autonomy makes SOI a very attractive approach for large volume IC's production dedicated to low voltage, low power, high speed systems. The capability of SOI circuits to operate at 1 V or below even in the case of DRAM's has been demonstrated as the best compromise between speed and power consumption. SOI is also appropriate for the Gigabit DRAM generation and the "system on chip" approach. These market segments will be the volume drivers for SOI but they are not the only markets for which SOI will be a key technology. Radiation-hard circuits, Smart power, MEMS, Mixed signal, High temperature electronics, and integrated optics all profit from the unique SOI structure. Up to now production volume of SOI circuits has been limited by SOI material availability. A new approach called Smart Cut(R) offers an answer both for the high volume production of SOI wafers and also for quality and cost issues. This approach is based on hydrogen implantation and wafer bonding and allows cutting of thin slices of material at the atomic scale. Trends in the SOI activity from material to systems are discussed.