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Oct 09, 2007 at 11:11 AM |
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 A new consortium has been launched to generate greater awareness within the semiconductor industry as to the benefits of using silicon-on-insulator (SOI) for IC designs across multiple markets other than those benefits associated with the wafer technology to date.
Dubbed the SOI Industry Consortium, nineteen companies have so far joined and include AMD, ARM, Cadence Design Systems, CEA-Leti, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Freescale Semiconductor, IBM, Innovative Silicon, KLA-Tencor, Lam Research, NXP, Samsung, Semico, Soitec, SEH Europe, STMicroelectronics, Synopsys, TSMC and UMC.
A key drive of the new consortium is to push SOI to lower cost levels in an attempt to broaden the appeal of the technology and target potential users to the low power benefits inherent in the technology rather than simply focusing on the performance enhancements already well characterized in recent years by early adopters such as IBM and AMD.
"Riding the performance wave, SOI has made significant inroads," notes Andre-Jacques Auberton-Herve, the consortium's newly elected chair. "Now, the focus has expanded to reducing power consumption. SOI can cut power consumption significantly - an enormous advantage - whether you're running a data center or hoping you have enough battery left to see the end of the match on your mobile telephone. By unifying users and enablers, the SOI Industry Consortium can identify and close gaps in the design chain, making SOI a viable choice for designers over a much broader range of markets."
Initial efforts of the consortium will concentrate on sharing best practices already established by early adopters and facilitating new design proof points.
“We believe SOI advances the industry in providing low-power applications, and ARM's involvement in the SOI Industry Consortium will help our customers accelerate their utilization," stated Tom Lantzsch, Vice President of Marketing, ARM Physical IP.
Three of the largest foundries - Chartered Semiconductor, TSMC and UMC - have also joined the initial wave of consortium members. Interestingly, only Chartered has volume production experience with SOI, while TSMC executives have consistently noted that SOI should be regarded as a niche technology.
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