FD-SOI Will Be Mainstream.

Synapse, which sits right by Intel’s backgate in Santa Clara, has done chip designs for seven out of the top ten chip companies. In the last 12 months it has designed 33 SoCs and none needed a re-spin.

“We’ve designed the biggest chips in the networking space (at 300 sq mm) and the fastest chips in the networking space,” says Bagalkotkar.

Synapse’s design flow, called STEM, can, says Bagalkotkar, “take any core and give you ten different variations.”

Asked if FD-SOI will be mainstream, Bagalkotkar replies: “I think so. We are seeing enough interest when we show the numbers to our customers, they say ‘this is something we will look into’.”

“FD-SOI is going go be big in Japan and China because of its low power performance compared to other technologies,” says Bagalkotkar, “there’s a big wave coming now in automotive and mobile in Japan and China. We’ve been working on FD-SOI since 2011 – we’ve had three tape-outs and are working on two more and there are more in the pipeline.”

Why is TSMC not picking it up? “Because it’s an SOI process which was developed by IBM,” replies Bagalkotkar.

Some say FD-SOI won’t scale to 14nm, but STMicroelectronics and LETI have roadmaps showing that, with Germanium added to the channel, it can be scaled to 10nm and 7nm.