The 38th annual SOI Conference is coming up in just a few weeks. Sponsored by IEEE Electron Devices Society, this is the only dedicated SOI conference covering the full technology chain from materials to devices, circuits and system applications. Chaired this year by Gosia Jurczak (manager of the Memories Program at imec), this excellent conference …

Are FinFETs better on SOI? In a series of papers, high-profile blogs and subsequent media coverage, Gold Standard Simulations (aka GSS) has indicated that, yes, FinFETs should indeed be better on SOI. To those of us not deeply involved in the research world, much of this may seem to come out of nowhere.  But there’s …

Imec and Genalyte have successfully developed and produced a set of disposable SOI-photonics biosensor chips for Genalyte‘s diagnostic and molecular detection equipment. Founded by SOI-photonics innovator Dr. Cary Gunn, Genalyte chips contain ring resonator sensors for very sensitive molecular detection; on-chip grating couples infrared light to diagnostic equipment.

GaN-on-Si is moving towards becoming a cost-effective enabler for next-generation LED and power devices. During the past decade gallium nitride (GaN) has become an important compound semiconductor as it enables numerous key applications in optoelectronics and in power electronics. GaN LED technology could well be the Holy Grail in terms of providing the next generation …

IMEC has developed an SOI-MEMS actuator that runs on ultra-low power and is watertight. This makes the actuator especially suited for use in in-vivo biomedical applications as well as in any application that needs long autonomy and small batteries.

There was an excellent turnout at an all-day workshop on FD SOI for low-power applications, co-sponsored by IMEC and the SOI Industry Consortium. Held at the IMEC campus in Leuven, Belgium this past October, “FD SOI architecture, technology platform for low power applications for 22nm and beyond” featured speakers from IMEC, IBM, Hitachi, Soitec, UC …

IMEC and CEA-Leti have launched ePIXfab, co-funded by the European Union through the Seventh Framework Program, offering a cost-effective way for researchers and small and medium sized companies to prototype photonic integrated circuits on SOI.

The IEEE’s International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) is the world’s showcase for the most important applied research breakthroughs in transistors and electronics technology. Here are a few highlights from some of the papers that presented advances in SOI-based devices and architectures at the most recent meeting (December 2008, San Francisco).