The SOI Industry Consortium Announces Results of a SOI and Bulk FinFETs Comparison Study

BOSTON, Massachusetts, October 21 /PRNewswire/ — The SOI Industry
Consortium today announced the results of a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and
bulk FinFETs comparison study conducted by the organization with the support
of some of its key members. The study has evaluated performance, process
variability, and cost differences between FinFETs fabricated with junction
isolation on bulk silicon wafers, and FinFETs fabricated on SOI wafers. The
analysis shows that fabrication on bulk and SOI wafers is for all practical
purposes equivalent in performance and cost. However, bulk-based FinFETs are
much more challenging to manufacture due to increased process variability.

Transistors are the miniscule on/off switches that make up the integrated
circuits in today’s microprocessors. The Fin Field Effect Transistor (FinFET)
design relies upon a thin vertical silicon “fin” to help control leakage of
current through the transistor when it is in the “off” stage. This design
combination allows for the creation of new chips with enhanced performance
and ever-shrinking geometries.

“This is a very important study. As the industry contemplates
transitioning to non-planar transistors, it is vital to bring the best
technical assessments possible of manufacturability, cost and performance
between the two substrate options: bulk and SOI,” comments Horacio Mendez,
executive director of the SOI Industry Consortium. “This collaborative effort
between companies and R&D institutes takes a careful look at these critical
parameters and its impact to end products.”

As the semiconductor industry looks toward the 22nm technology node, some
manufacturers are considering a transition from traditional planar CMOS
transistors to the three-dimensional FinFET device architecture. Relative to
planar transistors, FinFETs offer improved channel control and therefore
reduced short channel effects.

SOI simplifies FinFET fabrication: the buried oxide layer acts as an
etch-stop and isolates individual transistors; the fin height is a function
of the substrate thickness. Process variability comparisons showed that fin
height and width are far more easily controlled in the SOI process.

In this study, the fin heights and widths of the FinFET pairs fabricated
on bulk were shown to vary between 150 and 160% more than the SOI
equivalents. Such variation in these “transistor matching characteristics”,
which is the result of complexity in the bulk manufacturing process, can lead
to significant end-product variability.

The SOI Industry Consortium welcomes companies, organizations, government
and academic institutions to join the group in applying the full benefits of
SOI-based electronics to global sustainability challenges and lowering the
total cost-of-ownership of electronics.

About the SOI Industry Consortium:

The SOI Industry Consortium is chartered with accelerating
silicon-on-insulator (SOI) innovation into broad markets by promoting the
benefits of SOI technology and reducing the barriers to adoption.
Representing innovation leaders from the entire electronics industry
infrastructure, current SOI Industry Consortium members include: AMD, Applied
Materials, ARM, Cadence Design Systems, CEA-Leti, Chartered Semiconductor
Manufacturing, Freescale Semiconductor, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, IBM, IMEC, Infotech,
Innovative Silicon, Kanazawa Institute of Technology , KLA-Tencor, Magma
Design, Nvidia, Ritsumeikan University, Samsung, Semico, SEH Europe, Soitec,
Stanford University, STMicroelectronics, Synopsys, TSMC, Tyndall Institute,
University of California-Berkeley, University Catholique de Louvain, UMC and
Varian. Membership is open to all companies and institutions throughout the
electronics industry. For more information, please visit
http://www.soiconsortium.org.

Legal Note

The views and opinions expressed by the SOI Industry Consortium through
officers in the SOI Industry Consortium or in this presentation or other
communication vehicles are not necessarily representative of the views and
opinions of individual members. Officers of the SOI Industry Consortium
speaking on behalf of the Consortium should not be considered to be speaking
for the member company or companies they are associated with, but rather as
representing the views of the SOI Industry Consortium. Views and opinions are
also subject to change without notice, and the SOI Industry Consortium
assumes no obligation to update the information in this communication or
accompanying discussions.

    Press Contacts:
    Camille Darnaud-Dufour
    +33(0)6-79-49-51-43
    camille.darnaud-dufour@soiconsortium.org

SOURCE SOI Industry Consortium