Silicon On Insulator - Industry Need

Industry Need

The implementation of SOI technology is one of several manufacturing strategies employed to allow the continued miniaturization of microelectronic devices, colloquially referred to as extending Moore's Law. Reported benefits of SOI technology relative to conventional silicon (bulk CMOS) processing include:

• Lower parasitic capacitance due to isolation from the bulk silicon, which improves power consumption at matched performance.
• Resistance to latchup due to complete isolation of the n- and p-well structures.

From a manufacturing perspective, SOI substrates are compatible with most conventional fabrication processes. In general, an SOI-based process may be implemented without special equipment or significant retooling of an existing factory. Among challenges unique to SOI are novel metrology requirements to account for the buried oxide layer and concerns about differential stress in the topmost silicon layer. The primary barrier to SOI implementation is the drastic increase in substrate cost, which contributes an estimated 10–15% increase to total manufacturing costs.