Freescale:

• Power and die size are cut in half with Freescale’s jump from 90nm SOI to 45nm SOI for a new multi-core communications platform (a PowerQUICC™ evolution). Freescale will manufacture, as can IBM, Chartered and existing foundry partners. 32 nm SOI is next in the path.

• Sony’s XDCAM HD422 (fig. 1), the flagship of highdef broadcast video cameras, is leveraging Freescale’s SOI-based PowerQUICC III MPC8548 for high-speed video transmission.

Sony’s PS3 and its SOI-based Cell processor:

• Over one million Sony PS3 users have joined Folding@Home (supporting medical research). PS3 accounts for about 75% of the total petaflop computing power, pushing the project into the Guinness World Records™.

• Mercury Computer’s software that turns a PS3 into a supercomputing development station won the 2007 Readers’ Choice HPCwire Award.

Jazz Semiconductor’s new SOI option for its 0.18-micron Jazz Silicon Radio platform enables integration of both the antenna switch and power amplifier, eliminating discrete GaAs devices and reducing die costs up to fifty percent.

RFMD has entered the MEMS market for 3G multimode handsets with high-power, ohmic switches post-processed on RF CMOS SOI wafers. Further MEMS development will share space in a new R&D fab in North Carolina.

IBM:

• IBM and partners announced the 'high-k gate-first' approach for 32nm SOI, boosting SOI transistor speed >30% at a lower voltage.

• At ISSCC 08, an IBM paper on the automated migration of Cell from 65nm to 45nm indicated chip power consumption was reduced by about 40% and area by 34%.

• IBM reported in Nature Photonics on the world’s tiniest nanophotonic switch, which was built on SOI.

Caltech and the LETI have created the Alliance for Nanosystems VLSI. The initial focus is on large-scale integration of bio/chemical sensors like Caltech’s "NEMS nose", employing arrays of SOI-based, gas phase nanosensors, devices that are a million-fold smaller than previous technologies.

A goal of CATRENE (Cluster for Application and Technology Research in Europe), the EU EUREKA project’s follow-on to MEDEA+, is sustaining and strengthening leadership in SOI materials and design expertise.

Two more prestigious awards for Innovative Silicon Inc. (ISi) and its SOI-based Z-RAM® memory IP: a Technology Pioneer 2008 from the World Economic Forum and Audemars Piguet’s "Changing Times ‘Next Gem’ Award".

AMD (which builds all its 64-bit microprocessors on SOI):

• Announced availability of four new highperformance AMD Phenom™ X4 processors (2.2 to 2.5GHz); and of the world’s only triplecore x86 processor, the AMD Phenom X3 (fig. 2), (2.1 to 2.3GHz) for broader audiences.

• HP ProLiant G5 platforms were the first of many with the Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processor.

KLA-Tencor says its new WaferSight 2 is the industry’s first enabling wafer suppliers and chipmakers to measure bare wafer flatness, shape, edge roll-off and nanotopography in a single metrology system for 45nm and beyond. SOI wafer-supplier Soitec was a beta site.

With SOI, the new series of energy-efficient, high-voltage intelligent power devices (HV IPD) from Toshiba America Electronic Components (fig. 3). (TAEC) is >25% thinner. Target applications are DC motors in home appliances.

NXP’s new SOI-based TJA1080A, the first transceiver to comply with the FlexRay Physical Layer Conformance Test, will be commercially available in Q208. FlexRay, the protocol for brake- and steer-by-wire, is supported by leading automakers.

Kopin, which bases all its displays on SOI, announced:

• The 0.44" CyberDisplay® SVGA LVS microdisplay, billed as the smallest color SVGA display in the LCD industry. 45% smaller and 30% lower power, it targets PC and HDrelated video eyewear applications.

• The new CyberDisplay® 640M LVR display has been chosen for the U.S. Army’s new thermal weapon sight program, with potential volumes exceeding 150,000 units.

• Fujifilm continued its adoption of Kopin electronic viewfinders (EVFs), incorporating Kopin’s CyberEVF®230K into its new FinePix S8000fd SLR-styled camera.