The overarching goal of WAYTOGOFAST was to provide, thanks to an industrial European consortium covering the full value chain, a sustainable route to FDSOI technology for future CMOS nodes and maintain the European industry leadership in equipment, metrology, materials and IP/Design on this alternative More Moore technology.
The targeted technology node was ST’s 14 FDSOI and its extension to 14+ FDSOI to prepare the future introduction of the next full node (10 FDSOI). Although the technical arguments initially presented in favour of the FDSOI remained valid during the entire project duration, the market context evolved compared to the situation when the project was built. Thus, end of 2015, ST had to reconsider the way to reach this goal, taking into account two main factors: i) the slower adoption by the planned markets of the 14 FDSOI that was delaying the need for ST of this node for its own product lines ; ii) the forecasted lifetime of the 28 FDSOI.
On this basis, ST concluded that the best way to ensure the sustainability of the FDSOI technology in Europe was to focus its efforts in preparing the 28 FDSOI to answer the future needs of the targeted markets and to postpone its development on the 14 FDSOI nodes.
Due to the forecasted long lifetime of the 28 FDSOI technology platforms, and in line with the digital strategy of ST, an important R&D work is required in the next years to improve and tune their performance and to propose new options in order to better address mass markets like IoT and Automotive and also smaller markets with high added value like Space.
Consequently, it was decided that WAYTOGOFAST targeted products still aimed to achieve the original strategic target but by extending the scope of the 28nm node and supporting the 22/22+ nm nodes rather than the 14 and 14+ FDSOI technologies originally envisaged.
For ST, starting January 1st 2016, the developments aimed at qualifying a pilot line for the extensions of the 28 FDSOI platforms: i) Improved low-power 28 FDSOI (Ultra Low Power / Ultra Low Voltage); ii) Compatibility to higher voltage interfaces, up to 5V, for direct connection with batteries for simpler/cheaper IoT systems; iii) Compatibility of the CMOS process with the eNVM cell and iv) RF 28 FDSOI & Hardened 28 FDSOI for automotive, and space respectively.
The figure 1 explains the links between the requirements of the different targeted markets and the 5 axes of development of the project.
Therefore, the project worked on the most suitable generations of FDSOI technologies to answer the market requirements in the next 4 years. At the end of the project, the pilot line is ready to ramp in production with a qualified technology having its reliability demonstrated. During the project timeframe the SOI substrate for this FDSOI technology passed industrial maturity readiness level (SOITEC PILOT LINE), and so is the FD CMOS technology platform built on it by STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundries.
