UMC Announces a Device Technique that Enhances Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) Transistor Performance
"To further increase our competitiveness, UMC has always researched a variety of possible enabling technologies simultaneously," said S. C. Chien, senior director of UMC's Central Research and Development. "Our discovery on Direct-Tunneling induced Floating-Body Potential for Silicon-on-Insulator transistors not only provides the performance enhancement needed for UMC's future technologies, but also retains good manufacturability, which is a crucial element for a successful semiconductor foundry."
Direct Tunneling is a quantum mechanical behavior where electrons or holes jump through a thin insulator. This usually undesirable behavior can be manipulated with simple design layout structures. SOI devices could take advantage of this behavior to circumvent the Floating-Body Effect, an uncontrollable parasitic effect. With this extra control, the transistor behaves much more predictably in addition to the performance gain.
A series of publications discussing this technique have been published in the April and May editions of IEEE Electron Device Letters and IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.
About Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI)
Silicon-on-Insulator is an approach in which transistors are built on top of an insulating material instead of the conventional silicon crystal substrate. By replacing the silicon substrate with an insulator substrate, extra capacitive load produced at the interface between the substrate and the transistor active areas is eliminated. In effect, SOI transistors can switch faster with lower power consumption, compared to conventional bulk silicon transistors. However, the body of the transistor is now sitting on an insulator and therefore electrically isolated from the rest of the circuit. The isolated body leads to the floating body effect, which creates an uncontrollable mode that makes transistors behave erratically in certain circumstances.
About UMC
UMC (NYSE: UMC, TSE: 2303) is a leading global semiconductor foundry that manufactures advanced process ICs for applications spanning every major sector of the semiconductor industry. UMC delivers cutting-edge foundry technologies that enable sophisticated system-on-chip (SOC) designs, including 90nm copper, 0.13um copper, and mixed signal/RFCMOS. UMC is also a leader in 300mm manufacturing; Fab 12A in Taiwan and Singapore-based UMCi are both in volume production for a variety of customer products. UMC employs over 9,000 people worldwide and has offices in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Europe, and the United States. UMC can be found on the web at http://www.umc.com.
|
Related News
- Nineteen Electronics Industry Leaders Join Forces to Accelerate SOI (Silicon-On-Insulator) Innovation Into Broad Markets
- SOISIC Achieves First-Time-Right Silicon From 90nm High-Speed Silicon-On-Insulator tape-outs
- SOISIC Announces Semiconductor Industry's First Silicon- Proven 90nm High-Speed Silicon-On-Insulator Design Kit
- Freescale and TSMC to Develop Silicon-on-Insulator Technology
- Silicon Wave Selects NurLogic IP for Bluetooth Development; NurLogic Develops Advanced Silicon-on-Insulator Libraries and Memories
Breaking News
- Thalia's AMALIA 24.2 introduces pioneering estimated parasitics feature to reduce PEX iterations by at least 30%
- TSMC plans 1.6nm process for 2026
- Qualitas Semiconductor Partners with TUV Rheinland Korea to Enhance ISO 26262 Functional Safety Management System
- M31 has successfully launched MIPI C/D PHY Combo IP on the advanced TSMC 5nm process
- Ceva multi-protocol wireless IP could simplify IoT MCU and SoC development
Most Popular
- Controversial former Arm China CEO founds RISC-V chip startup
- Siemens collaborates with TSMC on design tool certifications for the foundry's newest processes and other enablement milestones
- Credo at TSMC 2024 North America Technology Symposium
- Synopsys Accelerates Next-Level Chip Innovation on TSMC Advanced Processes
- Kalray Joins Arm Total Design, Extending Collaboration with Arm on Accelerated AI Processing
E-mail This Article | Printer-Friendly Page |