News Article
Soitec to show off portfolio of RF substrate technologies
The firm will showcase substrates including GaAs epi and silicon-on-sapphire at CS ManTech between May 16-19 in California.
Soitec, a provider of revolutionary semiconductor materials for the electronics and energy industries, will showcase its full range of RF substrate technologies for mobile and consumer applications at this week’s 2011 International Conference on Compound Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology (CS ManTech).
Soitec says it is the only semiconductor materials supplier offering three RF substrate technologies –GaAs epi, high-resistivity silicon-on-insulator (Wave SOI), and bonded silicon-on-sapphire (B-SoS) – to fit its customers’ individual needs according to their device integration and performance requirements. Each of Soitec’s materials is well suited for fabricating large volumes of RF ICs for mobile applications, a segment that accounts for half of the global consumer electronics market in 2011.
Soitec’s mature technologies including Smart Cut, Smart Stacking and III-V epitaxy enable structures with multiple layers or even stacked circuits. For any type of product strategy that RF manufacturers are pursuing, Soitec claims to have the substrate technology to produce components with higher RF performance and lower costs.
“In the fast-paced mobile and consumer electronics markets, our customers need material solutions to improve energy efficiency and performance, as well as leverage their products’ integration,” said Paul Boudre, chief operating officer of Soitec. “Our full spectrum of substrate products and related technologies provide them with the differentiation to reach higher performance levels and drive innovation while reducing their costs and meeting market demand.”
GaAs epi wafers is a product line that Soitec has been offering for several years. Soitec manufactures these substrates in high volumes using an extremely accurate method for growing thin single-crystal layers. Because GaAs offers the highest RF mobility, it is the substrate of choice for millimetre wave-frequency applications. Its high breakdown voltage, low RF loss and high linearity also make it the state-of-the-art material for producing high performance RF ICs. In addition, Soitec is applying its core technology expertise to develop new innovations to further push this compound material in this market.
Soitec’s other products and technologies include Wave SOI and bonded SoS substrates, which have all of the performance attributes needed for integrating digital and RF functions – including switches, power amplifiers and antenna tuning – on one chip to produce advanced RF front-end modules. These modules are used in a wide variety of consumer electronics, from smart phones and tablet computers to digital cameras and gaming consoles.
Soitec also manufactures bonded SoS wafers using the company’s process expertise and direct wafer-bonding technologies to transfer and bond a high-quality, thin silicon layer onto a sapphire substrate. The resulting bonded silicon layer offers impressive improvements in transistor mobility and silicon quality beyond conventional SoS wafers. Soitec’s substrates enhance RF ICs’ performance, functionality and form factor, enabling IC size reductions and performance increases of as much as 30 percent.
Soitec will exhibit in booth #502 at the CS ManTech trade show, May 16-19 in Indian Wells, California.
