The widening availability of tools and services is good news for designers in the fabless/foundry arena considering the move to SOI. Leading foundries have made the investments in manufacturing on SOI. Those that have taken the final steps – finalizing electrical characterization, constructing SPICE models, integrating design tools and building libraries – are winning business. …

Michael Gruver, Program Manager, IBM Engineering & Technology Solutions, gives his perspective on foundry customers and custom SOI design. Advanced Substrate News: What tools or investments would a customer need if they were going for an SOI-based solution? Michael Gruver: There are two primary areas that a customer should address if they intend to use …

Company received top White House medal and SI Fab of the Year. Recently, IBM has been lining up awards for technology leadership, often citing the company’s work in SOI. IBM’s 300-mm, SOI-enabled Building 323 in East Fishkill, NY, was selected as the Semiconductor International 2005 Top Fab Award winner. According to the publication, “IBM has …

Microsoft’s custom PowerPC chip by IBM is based on SOI   Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which is expected to fly out of the stores this holiday season, has some very impressive figures to cite. The three-core PowerPC-based CPU, custom-made for Microsoft by IBM, boasts one teraflop of floating-point performance.

A quick guide to successful rapid thermal processing of SOI wafers Some engineers have indicated that they encounter challenges when running SOI wafers in rapid thermal processing (RTP). Why is this specific to SOI?

Historically, chipmakers conducting incoming quality control (IQC) on SOI wafers used for advanced logic devices are challenged in inspecting these substrates as efficiently and effectively as their bulk counterparts. The prevailing inspection process utilizes visible light inspection systems. However, these systems often require specific recipe setups and tool calibrations for each SOI wafer type and …

• IBM will offer new design services to help companies integrate the SOI-based Cell technology into a wide range of electronics products – especially image-intensive applications in the aerospace, defense, industrial and medical segments.

• The SOI version of TSMC’s new 65nm Nexsys Technology for SoC Design will be introduced in 2007.

• Honeywell International opened its new Minneapolis fab, which will produce the industry’s first radiation-hardened, 0.15-micron ASICs, based on SOI technology co-developed with Cypress Semiconductor.

Pilot production of Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing’s first 300-mm facility includes the 90nm SOI process tuned to IBM’s high-performance product needs.