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With the debut of SOI-based processors
for the next generation of gaming
consoles, advanced substrates move
to a new level: mainstream consumer electronics.
The first is Microsoft’s Xbox® 360, featuring a
customized IBM 90-nm SOI PowerPC. With the
coming of spring, we’ll see Sony’s Playstation® 3,
based on the IBM/Sony/Toshiba 90-nm SOI
Cell processor.
From the tremendous demands of digital content,
scalable applications are emerging for both the
high end (in applications such as home servers
and TV sets) and low-power applications,
especially for mobile markets. The new year will
be very important for the industry. The ramp-up
of Sony’s Nagasaki 300mm fab confirms
the launch of high-volume, SOI-based
manufacturing in Japan.
To help extend SOI to the fabless world and
to those with wide product arrays, companies
like Soisic are offering turnkey design kits.
Others are developing technologies that should
make fabricating SOI chips significantly lower
in cost than their bulk counterparts. For example,
new embedded memory technologies such
as Innovative Silicon’s Z-RAM achieve five times
the density of current embedded SRAM, yet
require no new materials or extra mask steps.
Fully depleted SOI is being leveraged by leading
companies in the development of “personal
generators”: ultra-low power chips that can run
off ubiquitous energy sources such as body heat
or natural illumination.
Advanced substrates are a strategic building
block for this new era, a key to the balance of
speed and power. Leaders in high performance
know it. Now leaders in consumer electronics are
leveraging it, too. You can’t afford not to.
Dr. André-Jacques Auberton-Hervé,
Chairman and CEO
The Soitec Group
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