Building the fully European supplY chain on RFSOI, enabling New RF Domains for Sensing, Communication, 5G and beyond

Project Information

BEYOND5

Grant agreement ID: 876124

DOI

10.3030/876124

Project closed

EC signature date 28 May 2020

Start date 1 June 2020

End date 31 December 2024

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 95 317 294,40

EU contribution

€ 24 639 949,73

Coordinated by

SOITEC SA
France

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - BEYOND5 (Building the fully European supplY chain on RFSOI, enabling New RF Domains for Sensing, Communication, 5G and beyond)

Reporting period: 2022-06-01 to 2023-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The overarching goal of BEYOND5 is to build a completely European supply chain for Radio-Frequency Electronics enabling new RF domains for sensing, communication, 5G radio infrastructure and beyond.
BEYOND5 is first and foremost a technology project gathering most significant European actors covering the entire value chain from materials, semiconductor technologies, designs and components up to the systems.
BEYOND5 strives to bring together mobile broadband (5G), the Internet of Things (IoT) and automation connectivity for self-driving cars in a single technology platform based on the most advanced SOI technologies manufactured in Europe, namely RFSOI and FDSOI.
The project will manufacture SOI components in Europe (three pilot lines in two European countries), aggregate the whole RF-SOI value chain to demonstrate added-value of the technology at the user level (six demonstrators) and reinforce a design ecosystem in Europe using these platforms. The substrate and IC manufacturers closely cooperate with designers, chipset and system providers, test instrument suppliers and end users to enable high performance and low cost RF components in proper time and volume and accelerate the Time-to-Market.

BEYOND5 will drive industrial roadmaps in More than Moore (MtM) in adding connectivity features on existing CMOS Technology. The ambition is to accomplish sustainable Radio Frequency SOI platforms to cover the frequency range from 0.7GHz to more than 100GHz, and to demonstrate the technical advantage of SOI, which allows combining large scale integration, low power consumption, cost competitiveness and higher reliability; thus, resulting in high volume production of trusted components with low environmental impact in Europe.

This objective will be achieved using the 3 major work streams:
1. Technology enhancement:
• 300mm RF SOI substrates pilot line in Soitec,
• “Substrate Innovation Center” to prepare future generations, coupled with the 300mm CMOS line in CEA-LETI,
• 22FDX technology pilot line ready to use addressing Digital Signal Processing of radio module and RF reliability, in GLOBALFOUNDRIES,
• RF-SOI 65nm technology pilot line for 5G Front-End Modules (FEM) in ST. This RFSOI technology will address both sub 6GHz and 28GHz application domains.

2. European RF Network enhancement: to create IP, building blocks, design libraries focused on FD-SOI and RF-SOI using a large fabless community (Large group, SMEs and Academia)

3. Leading edge systems development for RF connectivity and sensing:
• NB IoT for Smart Asset Tracking (Traxens),
• Contactless USB for high-data rate communication (ST),
• V2X for autonomous connected trucks (Ford Otosan),
• 5G Low Power Digital Beamforming Base Station for Indoor dense spaces (Ericsson),
• Automotive MIMO Radar with embedded AI (Valeo),
• Car Interior Radar for passenger monitoring (Silicon Radar).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project is globally in line with its objectives in the WP2 (technology) and the WP4 (system level).
Some delays have been cumulated on the first tape outs in the WP3 (Design) with different root causes listed below:
• Because of the very stretched timeline, design teams had to start collaborative work as soon as possible and even slightly before the beginning of the project if possible. The CoVid19 crisis in 2020 slowed down this collaboration
• Access to RFSOI 65nm technology was restricted for some demonstrators and backup plans had to be settled
PCA signature was delayed due to legal contact changes in Soitec.
Communication tools up and running.
High dissemination level but no standardization at this moment.
Few interactions with Advisory board (Only ORANGE)

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Demonstration of a highly integrated SiP - solution - will allow to reach the safety
goals EuNCAP from 2022, where new functions like driver-status monitoring and
at a later stage child-presence-detection are required
Showcase that radar – a technology respecting personal privacy - is superior to be
used for advanced sensing
The in-cabin radar of Demo6 enables completely new applications like vital sign detection of the driver. And at a later stage, should be suited for further use-cases like detection of out-of-position-situations, gesture capture for HMI or object detection for airbag control.
The technology 22FDX competitive advantage is:
European source with RF performance allowing low-power designs with operating frequencies beyond 100GHz (~ 120 GHz)
Allowing true low-cost designs for processing units for SoP solutions with high integration level.
In more details:
Thin RADAR IC for 120 GHz applications will be embedded in cavities of a silicon base wafer or into novel glass-based interposer structures and electrically interconnected to an antenna that is located directly aside the IC (the total team consists of AED / FHG-EMFT / FHG-IIS / Flavia-IT / FORD Otosan / MunEDA / Sony Europe B.V. / UBWM / SiR).
RF circuits for IC, antenna and interconnects will be co-designed by 3D full wave EM simulations. This approach enables RF simulation and optimization of the whole IC / antenna package before manufacture.
The use of standard semiconductor technology for the RF package on wafer-level ensures very high precision of interconnect geometry and optimum electrical performance.
In the frame of BEYOND5 Task 4.6 operational RF dies ( >100 GHz) will be integrated in such silicon package for the first time (sub-team consists of FHG-EMFT / Sony Europe B.V. / SiR).
Within the project an already existing RF chip from partner Silicon Radar (SiR) will be selected and used for the verification of the integration concept. FhG-EMFT will perform all steps for die embedding and electrical interconnection on silicon wafers, Sony will provide the design for the interconnects supporting operation >100GHz. The resulting RF chip modules will be transferred to partners Sony and Silicon Radar for electrical and high frequency characterization (sub-team consists of FHG-EMFT / FHG-IIT / Sony Europe B.V. / SiR).

Packaging

VCO and LO

RADAR Sensors modules

In cabin Radar

Low Noise amplifier figures

ANTENNA

Radar

RX MIMO Rador RFIC

Radar package