FDSOI: From substrate to devices and circuit applications

Nanotechnology starts at the substrate level. The SOI substrates enable performance improvement, area saving and power reduction for ICs through a convolution of substrate design and device architecture to maximize the benefits at the IC level. SOI substrates have made possible an efficient PDSOI MOSFET optimization increasing current drive while minimizing leakage and reducing parasitic elements. Further development of the SOI substrate technology has made possible to position ultra thin silicon SOI (UTSOI) as an industrial option for the manufacturing of FDSOI device architectures where the SOI film thickness uniformities is controlled below +5Å across the wafer and wafer to wafer. FDSOI enables the design for low power and high performance IC products. FDSOI circuit design does not have to take into consideration the history effect of PDSOI nor the high threshold voltage variation due to random dopant fluctuation given that the transistor channels are undoped. This makes the porting of designs from bulk to FDSOI much simpler. An overview of the advances in Smart Cut UTSOI and FDSOI devices and circuit applications will be given.