FD-SOI for RF & mmWave: Free Workshop, 4 April ’19, Grenoble
FD-SOI for RF and mmWave communications is a hot topic. In high-data rate communications like RF and millimeter-wave devices in particular, FD-SOI delivers high-performance with numerous unique advantages, making it most likely the fastest RF-CMOS technology on the market.
If you’d like to take a deep dive and learn more about it, Soitec and Incize are sponsoring a free, full-day workshop in Grenoble on April 4th, 2019. Click here for registration information. The workshop follows the day after the IEEE/EDS EuroSOI-ULIS conference there (you can read about the full conference in a previous ASN post).
This technical workshop will cover the FD-SOI technology platform with a focus on its compatibility with RF & mmWave communications. Attendees will hear from notable FD-SOI leaders and experts from leading industry and research institutions presenting updates on key developments and building blocks across the semiconductor value chain. Topics will include circuit design, device fundamentals, simulation and characterization of RF devices, test, CMOS technology and substrate technologies enabling FD-SOI. In addition, the workshop will include an overview about how FD-SOI technology is benefiting current and future end user applications.
Here’s the agenda:
FD-SOI technology platform: new standards for emerging consumer electronics [Click to enlarge.]
FD-SOI Training: Over 220 Attend 1st SOI Academy in Shanghai
There were over 220 participants at the recent SOI Academy FD-SOI Training event organized in Shanghai. The event extended over two days, with the first day covering a basic introduction to the technology as well as the ecosystem worldwide and in China. The second day was hands-on professional training. Attendees got a comprehensive understanding of how to leverage the benefits and flexibility of FD-SOI design techniques for low-power chips including logic, mixed-signal/RF and analog blocks.
They had a great line-up of experts from whom to learn – check out the agenda here. There was also a follow-up press release (in Chinese) from SITRI here. There will be more of these SOI Academy events in cities across China in the year to come – we’ll keep you posted (and of course, keep checking back for news on the Consortium’s Events page).
SOI Academy ’18 keynotes by: Dr. Mark Ding, CEO, SITRI; Dr. Carlos Mazure, EVP Soitec and Chairman/Executive Director SOI Consortium. Dr. Julien Arcamone, EVP Leti. (Images courtesy: SITRI). Lower right: the hands-on FD-SOI training.
The two-day seminar and hands-on FD-SOI design training was (superbly!) co-organized by SITRI and Leti, with the support of the SOI Industry Consortium at the Jiading SIMIT campus outside of Shanghai.
Just to put this in perspective, SIMIT and SITRI are absolutely key players in China’s chip ecosystem. SIMIT is the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, one of the most venerable institutes in the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) and one of the world’s earliest pioneers in SOI. SITRI is the Shanghai Industrial μTechnology Research Institute, an international innovation center focused on globally accelerating innovation and commercialization of More-than-Moore for IoT. Both institutions are under the aegis of Dr. Xi Wang, Chairman of SITRI, Director General of SIMIT, Academician of CAS, and champion of all things SOI in China.
At this Shanghai event, the participants came from industry (including big companies, SMEs and startups) and technical institutions. In fact as well as attendees from Shanghai people voyaged from other cities such as Shenzhen and Chengdu.
The designers participating to the FD-SOI training day were all experienced in design and highly motivated in learning FD-SOI design, notes Carlos Mazure, Chairman & Executive Director of the SOI Industry Consortium, and Executive VP of Soitec. “This made it possible to dive into the specificities of FD-SOI,” he said, adding that, “The focus on RF was very timely.”
Day 1: Intro to FD-SOI
The first afternoon opening keynotes were made by SITRI CEO Dr. Mark Ding and Leti EVP Dr. Julien Arcamone. These were followed by overview talks by execs from Soitec, Verisilicon and GlobalFoundries.
After a lively networking break, three talks delved into FD-SOI technology. The first was by Professor Sorin Cristoloveanu, Laureate of the IEEE Andrew Grove Award and Director at the CNRS (the French National Center for Scientific Research – the largest governmental research organization in France and the largest fundamental science agency in Europe). He covered device physics and characterization techniques. This was followed by talks on the technology by Soitec Fellow Bich-Yen Nguygen, and by Dr. Christophe Tretz, IBM Sr. Engineer on product design methodology.
The day ended with a dinner, where Professor Cristoloveanu says enthusiastic technical discussions continued unabated (and continued even further in follow-up emails), lots of business cards were exchanged, and opportunities for further education were explored.
Day 2: Hands-on Training
The second day, designers got hands-on training from Leti experts using FD-SOI PDKs, first in the morning on digital, then in the afternoon on RF. Everyone loved the lively discussion and in-depth exchanges between the experts and the designers. They agreed that FD-SOI has important applications and differentiated competitive advantages for IoT, 5G, automotive, AI and other fields. At the end of the training, Leti and SITRI jointly issued SOI Academy certificates of completion to the designers.
Feedback from participants was very good. Some asked for further education and for hands-on testimonials from companies that are already designing and manufacturing products on FD-SOI.
“The participants were focused, motivated, involved, with good knowledge, which helped make the three hours of Digital training effective,” said Dr. Alexandre Valentian, Leti Sr. Expert, Digital Design. “The IT team was very helpful in setting up the training, the students accounts and the hardware infrastructure.”
“The training on Basics of FD-SOI RF circuit was a great success thanks to the efficiency of our Chinese partners and also thanks to the enthusiasm and the good level of our trainees. As senior Expert of CEA Leti I was really impressed by the professionalism of the organization team. For all these reasons, I’m very glad to have had the opportunity to contribute to the 2018 SOI Academy,” said Dr. Baudouin Martineau, Leti Sr. Expert, RFIC Design & Technologies.
“The professionalism, efficiency and enthusiasm of our Chinese partners and the level and technical relevance of all trainees made the training on Basics of FD-SOI RF circuit a great success and fruitful experience,” added Frédéric Hameau, Sr. RF Research Engineer, Leti Project Leader, Architecture, IC Design & Embedded Software Division, RF Architectures and ICs Laboratory. “It was a pleasure to get the opportunity to be part of this first edition of SOI academy 2018.”
The organizers would like to thank the sponsors, including: the SOI Consortium and its members Soitec, VeriSilicon, GlobalFoundries, Simgui and Cadence, as well as Mentor, ProPlus and other companies and institutions in China and worldwide. Dr. Mazure notes that special recognition must go to Dr. Julien Arcamone, EVP, Leti-CEA and to Qing Wang-Bousquet, SITRI representative, for the perfect and smooth organization, and to the Leti instructors, who are international experts and highly committed.
“As one of the main initiators and organizers of the 2018 SOI Academy, I wanted to personally thank all of you for your respective contribution to this first edition of the SOI Academy,” concludes Dr. Arcamone. “Undoubtedly, it was a great success, very well organized and fluid and we can be proud of that.”
New Bluetooth 5 RF IP from VeriSilicon Targets Wearables, IoT on GF’s 22FDX
Since about a third of all IoT devices are expected to be connected by Bluetooth, chip designers need IP solutions that will help reduce system cost and greatly improve battery life. And that’s just what VeriSilicon has announced for GlobalFoundries’ 22FDX® (FD-SOI) process.
“By taking advantage of integrated RF capabilities of FD-SOI, in particular GF’s 22FDX, our BLE 5.0 RF IP will significantly reduce the system cost and greatly boost the growth momentum of wearable products such as wireless earplugs,” said Dr. Wayne Dai, Founder, Chairman, President and CEO of VeriSilicon. 22FDX enables efficient single-chip integration of RF, transceiver, baseband, processor, and power management components. GF and VeriSilicon are working on an SoC using VeriSilicon’s BLE 5.0 RF IP in GF’s 22FDX process.
The latest iteration of Bluetooth is 5, which (like its predecessor 4) has a Low Energy (LE) RF option – but with big improvements. According to the Bluetooth website, “With 4x range, 2x speed and 8x broadcasting message capacity, the enhancements of Bluetooth 5 focus on increasing the functionality of Bluetooth for the IoT.” BLE 5.0 was designed for very low power operation and is optimized for the sorts of short burst data transmissions you’ll get with IoT.
On the strength of VeriSilicon’s innovative RF architecture and by leveraging GF’s 22FDX technology, VeriSilicon says the new IP product achieves significant improvements in power, area, and cost compared to current offerings, so it will better serve the emerging and increasing wearable devices and IoT applications space.
“VeriSilicon’s BLE IP complements GF’s 22FDX FD-SOI capabilities and is well positioned to support the explosive growth of low-power IoT and connected devices,” said Mark Ireland, vice president of ecosystem partnerships at GF. “Together, we broaden our IP and services to further enable our mutual clients to provide power and cost efficient solutions.”
VeriSilicon BLE 5.0 RF IP includes a transceiver that is compliant with the BLE 5.0 specification and supports GFSK modulation and demodulation. The silicon measurement shows that the sensitivity can be tested up to -98dBm with less than 7mW power dissipation in typical conditions. It largely improves battery life for low power IoT applications. In addition, the RF transceiver saves 40% area compared to a similar implementation on 55nm bulk CMOS. Besides the RF transceiver, this IP integrates on-chip balun, TX/RX switch and 32K RC OSC driver to save the BOM. Moreover, high efficiency DC/DC and LDOs are also available for power management.
You can read the full press release in Chinese here and in English here.
Share This! Terrific Guide to All Things FD-SOI in GSA Newsletter
Manuel Sellier, Product Marketing Manager at Soitec
Manuel Sellier, Product Marketing Manager at Soitec for the FD-SOI (and some other) SOI product lines has written an absolutely terrific primer entitled FD-SOI: A technology setting new standards for IoT, automotive and mobile connectivity applications. It’s in the August edition of the GSA Forum (the GSA is the Global Semiconductor Alliance).
If you know anyone who needs to quickly glean an understanding of FD-SOI that is both in-depth and broad, you’ll want to share this piece with them right away.
Before joining Soitec, Sellier was a chip designer at ST, where he gained deep experience designing FD-SOI chips. What’s more, he holds a Ph.D. in the modeling and circuit simulation of advanced MOS transistors, including FD-SOI and FinFETs. So, he really knows his stuff. But don’t worry that this might be too technical: Sellier’s writing is thoroughly accessible (and engaging!) for anyone in the industry.
He starts with the wafer history, then quickly moves on to the features from the designer’s standpoint. And he puts it all in a business perspective. I can’t recommend this piece enough – even if you think you know everything already yourself, you’re sure to learn something new.
TowerJazz Ramps 300mm 65nm RF-SOI, extends long-term partnership with Soitec
Specialty foundry TowerJazz is ramping a 65nm version of its RF-SOI process on 300mm wafers at Fab 7 in Uozu, Japan. To support the ramp, the company has signed a contract with long-term partner, Soitec, guaranteeing a supply of tens of thousands of 300mm SOI silicon wafers, securing wafer prices for the next years and ensuring supply to its customers, despite a tight SOI wafer market.
The 300mm 65nm RF-SOI process will be offered at the Uozu, Japan fab, which is operated by the TowerJazz Panasonic Semiconductor Company (TPSCo). (Photo courtesy: TowerJazz)
Five of TJ’s seven fabs do RF-SOI. LNA (low-noise amplifers) are a big market driver, and with RF-SOI they can integrate the LNA with the switch, CEO Russell Ellwanter said in his lead keynote at the SOI Consortium’s 5th International RF-SOI Workshop in Shanghai (spring, 2018). BTW, that was in fact a very inspirational talk about Value Creation, and the importance of treating your suppliers with respect. He credited his company’s close relationship with RF-SOI wafer-supplier Soitec for TJ’s claim to the world’s best linearity.
“We are delighted to see the strong adoption of 300mm RF SOI through this large capacity and supply agreement with TowerJazz to augment our already significant 200mm RF-SOI partnership,” said Soitec CEO Paul Boudre. “TowerJazz was the first foundry to ramp our RFeSI products to high volume production in 200mm and continues as one of the industry leaders in innovation in this exciting RF market with advanced and differentiated offerings.”
According to the TJ press release (you can read it here), with its best in class metrics the TowerJazz 65nm RF-SOI process enables the combination of low insertion loss and high power handling RF switches with options for high-performance low-noise amplifiers as well as digital integration. The process can reduce losses in an RF switch improving battery life and boosting data rates in handsets and IoT terminals.
It’s a high-growth market, to be sure. Market researchers Mobile Experts predict that the mobile RF front-end market will reach $22 billion in 2022 from an estimated $16 billion in 2018. TowerJazz says its breakthrough RF SOI technology continues to support this high-growth market and is well-poised to take advantage of next-generation 5G standards, which will boost data rates and provide further content growth opportunities in the coming years.
Customers are already getting into position. For example, Maxscend (WuXi, China), a provider of RF components and IoT integrated circuits, is ramping in this new technology. “We chose TowerJazz for its advanced technology capabilities and its ability to deliver in high volume while continuously innovating with a strong roadmap. We specifically selected its 300mm 65nm RF SOI platform for our next-generation product line due to its superior performance, enabling low insertion loss and high power handling,” said Maxscend CEO Zhihan Xu.
As longtime ASN readers will know, we’ve been covering the evolutions of TJ’s RF-SOI platforms since the beginning of the decade. It’s worth noting, too, that beyond RF, TowerJazz also offers foundry customers other SOI-based processes, such as the new 0.18μm BCD SOI, a 200V SOI technology platform (announced in 2017, press release here) for motor drivers, industrial tools, electric vehicles and more. The previous generation 0.18μm SOI for automotive power management also offers exceptional area savings and is well-suited for high temperature operation. Back in 2014, here at ASN we did a great interview with TJ SVP Dr. Marco Racanelli about when and why they use SOI – and while processes have advanced, the basic drivers are still there, so it’s a still a good read.
And finally, designers will want to know that the TJ Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) Shuttle Program offers the 65nm RF-SOI process, as well as other SOI-based processes. See the website for scheduling and details.
Foundries Expand Rapidly to Meet Soaring RF-SOI Demand (SemiEngineering)
“GlobalFoundries, TowerJazz, TSMC and UMC are expanding or bringing up RF SOI processes in 300mm fabs in an apparent race to garner the first wave of RF business for 5G, the next-generation wireless standard,” writes Mark Lapedus of Semiconductor Engineering. His recent piece, RF-SOI Wars Begin, explains why demand across the supply chain is currently tight.
Rest assured, the supply situation is being addressed fast. By next year, 300mm-based RF-SOI manufacturing (vs. 200mm) will increase from 5% to 20%. But with insatiable end-user demand for greater throughput, overall RF-SOI device demand is increasing in the double-digit range, so 200mm-based manufacturing is also expanding fast.
The front-end modules in all smartphones are built on Soitec’s RF-SOI wafer technology. The most advanced, for LTE/LTE-A, are built on Soitec’s RFeSI-SOI wafers, which have four layers to meet the demands of devices with high linearity requirements. (Courtesy: Soitec)
SOI wafer manufacturer Soitec has 70% of the RF-SOI wafer market share. The other RF-SOI wafer manufacturers – Shin-Etsu, GlobalWafers and Simgui – all use Soitec’s RF-SOI wafer manufacturing technology.
This is an excellent, comprehensive piece, that clearly explains the complexities of the markets, the devices, the manufacturing and the supply chain. It’s a highly recommended read.
BTW, the SOI Consortium is organizing a 4G/5G SOI supply chain workshop during Semicon West (July ’18). Sign up or get more information on that under the Events tab here on the consortium website.
Of course, here at ASN, we’ve been covering RF-SOI for over a decade. You can use our RF-SOI tag to access most of the pieces we’ve done over the years.
Foundries Ramp FD-SOI, VLSI Survey Shows Why – More Highlights from the Silicon Valley SOI Symposium (Part 2)
Good news: there are far fewer bigoted extremists out there when it comes to FD-SOI vs. FinFETs. People want the best technology for their application. It’s that simple. That’s a key piece of news from the updated survey by Dan Hutcheson, CEO of VLSI Research, which he presented in the afternoon session of the SOI Consortium’s 2018 SOI Symposium in Silicon Valley
The afternoon then featured presentations by foundry partners, which I’ll cover here.
Also in the afternoon were presentations by wafer-maker Simgui, some innovative start-ups leveraging FD-SOI for custom SoCs and the final panel discussion. I’ll cover those in Part 3 of this series.
BTW, if somehow you missed my coverage of the morning sessions about very cool new products and projects from NXP, Sony, Audi, Airbus and Andes Technology, be sure to click here to read it.
The presentations are starting to be posted on the SOI Consortium Events page – but some won’t be. Either way, I’ll cover them here.
VLSI Research
A couple years ago at the annual SOI Symposium in Silicon Valley, Dan Hutcheson presented results of a survey he did (ASN covered it – you can still read about it here). At the 2018 event, he presented an update, which is now posted. You can get it here.
The FD-SOI roadmap and IP availability are no longer issues for decision makers, he found. The 14nm branch – do you go FinFET or FD-SOI? – is gone. “Fins and FD are complementary,” he observed. Most people said they’d consider using both and running two roadmaps, choosing whichever technology is appropriate to a given design.
(Courtesy: VLSI Research, SOI Consortium)
From a transistor viewpoint, the top reasons to choose FD-SOI is that it’s better for analog and has lower leakage/parastics. It’s perceived as better for complex, high mixed-signal SoCs, and especially for RF and sensor integration. In fact, people see RF as the new mixed-signal, wherein FD-SOI is uniquely positioned for 5G and mmWave.
From a business viewpoint, FD-SOI is perceived to have real advantages. In particular, FD-SOI wins when it comes to keeping down design costs, manufacturing costs and time-to-market. IoT is still the hottest target market for FD-SOI, to which he adds high growth expected in automotive and medical.
Samsung
With 20 tape-outs in 2018, Samsung is seeing an acceleration in its FD-SOI business. “The trend is healthy,” said Hong Hoa, SVP of the company’s foundry business. FD-SOI, he continued, is on a “differentiation path.”
Samsung’s 28nm FD-SOI process, called 28FDS is at full maturity with very strong yields. They’re seeing more customers and a wider range of applications. The design infrastructure, silicon-verified IP and methodologies are also all mature. They have optimal implementation and verification guidelines for body bias design, a body bias memory usage guide, and a body bias generator integration guide. The process supports Grade 1 automotive, and will be qualified for Grade 2 in a few weeks.
FD-SOI, Hoa reminded the audience, offers superior RF performance compared to both planar bulk and 14nm FinFET. The Samsung strategy is to first provide a base for for the FD-SOI process, then add RF and eMRAM. The base for 28nm was done in 2016; they added RF in 2017 and eMRAM this year.
The Samsung platform for IoT applications integrates both RF and eMRAM to support multi-function needs in a single platform. Lead customers are already working with eMRAM in their designs, he added. (BTW, Samsung has a really nice video explaining their eMRAM offering – you can see it on YouTube here.)
The basic PDK for the Samsung 18nm FD-SOI process (18FDS) will be available in September 2018, with full production slated for fall of 2019. It will deliver a 24% increase in performance, a 38% decrease in power, and a 35% decrease in area for logic. RF for the 18FDSplatform will be ready by the end of this year, and eMRAM beginning in 2019.
GlobalFoundries
With design wins from 36 customers underway, 12 of which are taping out in 22FDX (GF’s 22nm FD-SOI process) this year, the market has validated FDX for differentiation, said GF SVP Dr. Bami Bastani. And indeed, designers are using it for a wide array of applications across North America, Europe, Asia/Pacific and Japan.
Customers in the North America are designing in 22FDX for NB-IoT, industrial, RF/analog, mobile, network switches and cryptocurrency applications. In Europe, it’s more or less the same plus automotive/mmWave, optical transmission, wireless BTS and AI/ML. In Asia Pacific/Japan the mix is similar to Europe.
Bastani sees the three big enablers as the the strengths of the roadmap, the ecosystem and multi-sourcing from Dresden and Chengdu (where they’re already equipping the cleanrooms). He also tipped his hat in acknowledgment to the partnership with FD-SOI wafer supplier Soitec, noting that they have gone the extra mile to match GF’s requirements.
So that was the first part of a great afternoon. As mentioned above, my next post (part 3) will cover a very informative presentation by wafer-maker Simgui on the markets in China, plus talks by some innovative start-ups leveraging FD-SOI for custom SoCs and the final panel discussion.
GF Simplifies RF-SOI and FD-SOI Design for 5G with New Partnership Program
GlobalFoundries’ new ecosystem partner program, called RFwave™, aims to simplify RF design and help customers reduce time-to-market for a new era of wireless devices and networks (read the full press release here). The program aims to give designers a low-risk, cost-effective path to highly optimized solutions that leverage GF’s platforms including RF on FD-SOI and RF-SOI. The target is wireless applications such as IoT across various wireless connectivity and cellular standards, standalone or transceiver integrated 5G front end modules, mmWave backhaul, automotive radar, small cell and fixed wireless and satellite broadband.
As such, the RFwave™ partner program provides GF customers with IP design elements, EDA tools, design consultation and services and OSAT product packaging and test solutions. These products and services are validated, and comprise a plug-and-play catalog of design solutions. With this level of integration, GF customers can create high-performance designs while minimizing development costs.
Bami Bastani, senior vice president of GF’S RF Business Unit, says, “As a leader in RF, GF’s RFwave program takes industry collaboration to a new level, enabling our customers to build differentiated, highly integrated RF-tailored solutions that are designed to accelerate the next wave of technology.”
Initial members of the RFwave Partner Program are: asicNorth, Cadence, CoreHW, CWS, Keysight Technologies, Spectral Design, and WEASIC.
Silicon Valley FD-SOI 2018 Training Day is April 27th – Don’t Miss It!
Following the immense success of last year‘s FD-SOI training day in Silicon Valley, the SOI Consortium has another one planned for the end of April this year. If you want to start learning how to leverage FD-SOI in your chip designs, this is a great place to start. Click here for information on how to sign up.
ST Fellow Dr. Andreia Cathelin has put together another great line-up. World renowned professors and experts from industry will deliver a series of four training sections of 1.5 hours each, focused on energy efficient and low-power, low-voltage design techniques for analog, RF, high-speed, mmW and mixed-signal design.
You’ll learn about design techniques that take full advantage of the unique features of FD-SOI, including body biasing capabilities that further enhance the excellent analog/RF performances of these devices.
Each section of this training day will take you through concrete design examples that illustrate new implementation techniques enabled by FD-SOI technologies at the 28nm and 22nm nodes – and beyond.
The design examples will cover basic building blocks through SoC implementations. A global Q&A session will close the day.
Here’s a little more info on how the day will unfold. Click on the slides to see them in full screen.
Morning sessions
FDSOI-specific design techniques for analog, RF and mmW applications – Andreia Cathelin, Fellow, STMicroelectronics
Quick preview from Andreia Cathelin’s FD-SOI training session (Courtesy: STMicroelectronics, SOI Consortium)
Andreia Cathelin is ST’s key design scientist for all advanced CMOS technologies, and is arguably the world’s leading expert on leveraging FD-SOI in high-performance, low-power RF/AMS SoCs. Her course will first present a very short overview of the major analog and RF technology features of 28nm FDSOI technology. Then the focus moves to the benefits of FD-SOI technology for analog/RF and millimeter-wave circuits. She’ll give design examples such as analog low-pass filters, inverter-based analog amplifiers and 30GHz and 60GHz Power Amplifiers, as well as mmW oscillators. There will be particular focus on the advantages of body biasing and special design techniques offering state-of-the-art performance.
Circuit Design Techniques in 22nm FD-SOI for 5G 28GHz Applications – Frank Zhang, Principal Member of Technical Staff, GlobalFoundries
Quick preview from Frank Zhang’s FD-SOI training session (Courtesy: GlobalFoundries, SOI Consortium)
Frank Zhang has designed chips using GF’s 22nm FD-SOI (22FDX) process for WLAN, 5G cellular and automotive radar applications. His course will focus on how to take advantages of FD-SOI’s high-frequency performance at relatively low-current density to design high performance RF/mmWave circuits. Examples circuits include a 28GHz LNA, a 28GHz PA and an RF switch for 5G applications. The FD-SOI advantages such as low capacitance, high breakdown voltage and high-output impedance will be exploited in these design examples. This course will also discuss how to extend these techniques to applications at higher frequencies and/or higher current densities that are subject to extreme temperatures and EM requirements.
Afternoon sessions
Energy-Efficient Design in FDSOI – Bora Nikolic, Professor, UC Berkeley
Quick preview from Bora Nikolić’s FD-SOI training session (Courtesy: UC Berkeley, SOI Consortium)
Borivoje (“Bora”) Nikolić is known as one of the world’s top experts in body-biasing for digital logic (he and his team have designed more than ten chips in ST’s 28nm FD-SOI.) If you missed it, his team’s RISC-V chip was cited as one of Dr. Cathelin’s “Outstanding 28nm FD-SOI Chips Taped Out Through CMP” – read more about that here. His talk at the training day will present options for energy-efficient mixed-signal and digital design in FD-SOI technologies. He’ll explain how to generate body bias and use it to improve efficiency, with examples in RF and baseband building blocks, temperature sensors, data converters and voltage regulators. The techniques will be presented in the context of UC Berkeley’s latest RISC-V-based SoC, designed to operate in a very wide voltage range using 28nm FD-SOI.
mm-Wave and Fiber-Optics Design in FD-SOI CMOS Technologies – Sorin Voinigescu, Professor, University of Toronto
Quick preview from Sorin Voinigescu’s FD-SOI training session (Courtesy: U. Toronto, SOI Consortium)
Sorin Voinigescu is a world renowned expert on millimeter-wave and 100+Gb/s ICs and atomic-scale semiconductor device technologies. His lecture will cover the main features of FD-SOI CMOS technology and how to efficiently use its unique features and suitable circuit topologies for mm-wave and broadband SoCs. He’ll begin with an overview of the impact of the back-gate bias and temperature on the measured I-V, transconductance, fT, and fMAX characteristics. Then he’ll compare the maximum available gain, MAG, of FDSOI MOSFETs with those of planar bulk CMOS and SiGe BiCMOS transistors through measurements up to 325 GHz. Next, he’ll provide biasing, sizing and step-by-step design examples for VCO, doubler, switches, PA, large swing optical modulator drivers and quasi-CML circuit topologies and layouts that make efficient use of the back-gate bias to overcome the limitations associated with the low breakdown voltage of 20nm and 12nm FD-SOI CMOS technologies.
Sign Up Now!
With over 100 attendees filling every chair in the auditorium, last year’s training day was sold out. Although it was in Silicon Valley, people actually flew in from all over the world to be there. During the Q&A at the end, most everyone prefaced their questions by saying, “Thank you. I really learned a lot today.”
2018 will be no different – except that it’s sure to sell out even faster. Please note, though, that this is not a free event, so only the attendees will get copies of the slide decks.
Here’s key info you need to sign up. See you there!
What: SOI Consortium’s FD-SOI Training Day
When: 27 April 2018, 7:30am – 5pm.
Where: Crowne Plaza San Jose, Milpitas CA (parking is free)
Registration fee: US $485.00 (includes training book, breakfast, box lunch and refreshments during breaks)
How to sign up: Click here to go directly to the registration site.
SEMI Honors RF-SOI Innovators Raskin & Aspar
RF-SOI innovators Jean-Pierre Raskin of UCL and Bernard Aspar of Soitec changed the course for key RF chips. The industry has long recognized their contributions: their solution for “trap-rich” RF-SOI wafers is now the starting point to virtually every FEM in every smart phone on the planet (really!). And of course here at ASN we’ve been following their work for over a decade. Now more accolades are coming in.
The latest is the 2017 European SEMI Award, which was given at ISS Europe 2018 for “…their seminal work with radio frequency silicon-on-insulator (RF-SOI) substrates” (read the press release here). As SEMI notes, the “…award winners’ pioneering research and collaboration with academia and industry led to major advances in RF switches and ushered RF-SOI technology from concept to worldwide adoption.” Aspar and Raskin were nominated and selected by their peers within the international semiconductor community.
Bernard Aspar, Executive Vice President, Communication & Power BU at Soitec
Aspar founded CEA-Leti spinoff Tracit Technologies in 2003. He was appointed senior vice president of the Tracit Division (now the Communication & Power business unit) when Soitec acquired Tracit in 2006. He has more than 15 years of experience in direct wafer-bonding and layer transfer. Aspar has filed more than 35 patents and co-authored some 100 scientific articles. He holds engineering and Ph.D. degrees in materials sciences and a master’s degree in microelectronics from the University of Montpellier, France.
Jean-Pierre Raskin, professor, Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)
Raskin contributed to pioneering scientific studies demonstrating that silicon-based MOS technology could enable affordable, high-quality mobile devices. His findings led to the advent of RF-SOI technology and today impact the global microelectronics industry. He is an IEEE Senior Member, EuMA Associate Member and Member of the Research Center in Micro and Nanoscopic Materials and Electronic Devices of the Université catholique de Louvain, where he has been a full professor since 2007. He is author or co-author of more than 350 scientific articles.
Their advanced RF-SOI technology is now behind a wide range of applications and systems in areas including mobile devices, satellite communications, IoT, automotive radar and aerospace.
If you want to better understand all this, a few years ago UCL and Soitec teams contributed an excellent article to ASN. It clearly explains how and why these new substrates came to be. You can still read it here. (Or if you’re still a little confused about RF-SOI vs. RF on FD-SOI, here’s a piece we did back in 2015 that explains the basics.)