RF SOI

China Mobile is the world's largest* telco. So when Danni Song, one of the company's high-level project managers presented at the SOI Consortium's 5th International RF-SOI Workshop in Shanghai, you can bet people listened. With each new slide, a glowing sea of cell phone cameras rose over the heads of the audience in the huge, packed ballroom. [caption id="attachment_11612" align="alignleft" width="300"] (Photo courtesy: SOI Consortium, Simgui)[/caption] Over the last month, there's been a lot more coverage of 5G in the press (especially after the recent Mobile World Congress (MWC) – check out Junko Yoshida's EETimes piece for example). For ASN readers who want to know more about 5G and RF-SOI in China, here's a reminder that Song's presentation, and many of the others given by leading companies at the RF-SOI Workshop last fall, are now posted on and freely available the Consortium website Events page. Click here for the listing and links.The theme of the workshop was IoT, mobile, 5G connectivity, and mmW. As Dr. Xi Wang, Director General of SIMIT/CAS (the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem Information Technology in the Chinese Academy of Sciences), said in his opening keynote, China is strong in RF-SOI. RF-SOI will be growing at a CAGR of over 15% for the next five years, and China has production, design, wafer manufacturing and good momentum. “We will make a great contribution to the whole IC industry,” he predicted.Of note, too, Russell Ellwanter, CEO of TowerJazz, gave what turned out to be a very inspirational keynote about Value Creation, and the importance of treating your suppliers with respect. He credits his company's close relationship with RF-SOI wafer-supplier Soitec for TJ's claim to the world's best linearity. Five of their seven fabs do RF-SOI. LNA (low-noise amplifers) are a big market driver, and with RF-SOI they can integrate the LNA with the switch.Here are some more highlights from the day – but by all means check out the presentations for details. (You can click on the illustrations to see them in full screen.)China MobileIn her presentation, Embrace a Brand New Cooperation in 5G Era, Song asked where RF-SOI could help in her wish list. Could it increase integration and decrease cost and power consumption? Can it help improve NB-IoT device performance? The supply chain needs to come back around into a circle, so that the telcos are connected to and get insights from the wafer substrate providers, she said. [caption id="attachment_11608" align="alignright" width="300"] (Courtesy: China Mobile, SOI Consortium)[/caption] China Mobile has a 5G Innovation Center, and has established test labs in 8 cities. And the government has announced a 5G launch in 2020, with pre-commercial trials now going into 20 cities. So she was at the RF-SOI Workshop as much to listen and learn as to share China Mobile's vision.Sony [caption id="attachment_11613" align="alignleft" width="300"] (Courtesy: SOI Consortium and Sony)[/caption] The presentation by Kidetoshi Kawasaki, GM of Sony Semiconductor Solutions, focused on antenna tuning, which he said is one of the fastest growing things in cell phones. Antenna Tuning Progress SOI Single Chip Integration for 4G/5G UE (note that UE = user equipment) looks at antenna aggregation, and why it is important for carrier aggregation (CA) and MIMO. Sony has developed an SOI-based next-gen process for 5G integrating passive components. That's why RF-SOI is important and will be continued to be used in the mobile market, he said.GlobalFoundriesGF has developed demo vehicles to help customers, said Sr. Director of the RF Business Unit, Peter Rabbeni. (Over the years they've shipped over 32 billion RF-SOI devices, btw.) In his presentation, RF-SOI: Delivering Performance Integration for the Next Generation of Mobile,he noted that RF is becoming more complex than digital. As a result there is a need to integrate to help reduce cost: this is a direct correlation to the standards that are driving complexity. At the same time, performance requirements are increasing, so the challenge is driving increased performance at the same or lower cost than previous generations of products. [caption id="attachment_11609" align="alignright" width="300"] (Courtesy: GlobalFoundries and SOI Consortium)[/caption] To meet 4G/LTE and 5G's evolving performance demands, GF has recently introduced two new RF-SOI platforms, which he detailed in the presentation. 8SW enables increased integration of front-end modules (FEMs), while 45RFSOI is for mmWave FEMs. (In a separate presentation, IDDO-IC CEO Denis Masliah presented a Differential Complementary Millimeter Wave Power Amplifier for 5G using 45RFSOI process, which is currently being fabbed by GF.)RF-SOI Wafer SuppliersThe two leading RF-SOI wafer suppliers, Soitec and partner Simgui, both gave excellent presentations. Though Soitec EVP Bernard Aspar's presentation Engineered Substrates as Foundation of Innovation in RF is not posted, he made some important points. Up til now, RF-SOI has mainly been about switches and tuners, he said, but there are other opportunities that offer the potential for huge growth. The full supply chain needs to be prepared, he said, and suppliers need to understand each other. Each technology requires the right substrate – and even as we move into sub-6GHz 5G, there is still work to be done in 4G. In fact Soitec is now offering services to help customers better understand new substrate options. [caption id="attachment_11611" align="alignright" width="300"] (Courtesy: Simgui, SOI Consortium)[/caption] Soitec's partner in China, Simgui, now uses Soitec's Smart CutTM technology for RF-SOI wafer production. Together the two are now producing over a million 200mm RF-SOI wafers/year, said Simgui Sr. Director, Kerui Wang. His presentation, RF-SOI – a Secured Substrate Supply Chain, looked at their strategic partnership with Soitec, wherein they use the same tools and processes to deliver the same products meeting the same specs.Fabs and FablessTwo leading fabless companies – RDA Microelectronics (which was acquired by Spreadtrum) and SmarterMicro also presented their RF-SOI activities. Although their ppts are not posted, here are a few highlights.Longtime ASN readers will recall that RDA has been shipping high-volume, RF-SOI based chips to Samsung and others for over five years. In the presentation, RF-SOI in Current and Future RFFE Solutions, Engineering AVP Joseph Jia said that over last two years alone they've released almost 50 RFFE (front end) chips on RF-SOI. They see RF-SOI as the right match for switches, tuners and NB-IoT because of the low-voltage and tunability advantages.SmarterMicro's CTO, Peter Li, sees RF-SOI as a cornerstone of 5G. In his presentation, Reconfigurable RFFE in 5G, he said the goal is smart systems on fewer dies to decrease size and cost.Jeff Zhu, assistant director at SMIC, presented SMIC, 0.13um RF-SOI Platform Updates. Mainland China's largest foundry has recently moved its RF-SOI process from 180 to 130um, and he walked us through some chip designs.Throughout the day, presenters noted that RF is a great opportunity for China to take a leadership position. As one panelist at the end of the day noted, RF depends more on expertise and talent than digital, which depends more on manpower.Nanjing: A China RF CapitalJust before the Shanghai events, there was a 2-day event sponsored by the City of Nanjing, co-organized by SOI Industry Consortium and the City of Nanjing. Over 200 participants attended the workshop and tutorials on SOI applications, SoC development and manufacturing, EDA IP ecosystem, as well as a design tutorial for More than Moore SOI ecosystem. Almost all of those presentations are now posted on the Consortium – click here to get them.Some of the participants in the SOI Consortium's delegation also had the opportunity to visit the enormous Nanjing Sofware Park. Nanjing, we learned, is often considered China's “RF capital”. The list of the world's major RF players working in partnership there is certainly an international who's who.So, lots of good RF-SOI/5G info on the SOI Consortium website – check it out!~ ~ ~*in terms of market value and subscribers.

GlobalFoundries' 45nm RF-SOI platform is qualified and ready for volume production on 300mm wafers (read the company's full press release here). It was just at the beginning of last year that GF announced the PDK availability for 45RFSOI (we covered it here). Now there are several customers engaged for this advanced RF SOI process, which is targeted for 5G mmWave front-end module (FEM) applications, including smartphones and next-generation mmWave beamforming systems in future base stations. In case you missed it, at the Consortium's Shanghai symposium GF's Mr. RF -- Peter Rabbeni -- gave a great talk on the company's RF-SOI capabilities, which are very impressive (they've shipped over 32 billion RF-SOI devices, after all). His slides from that day are available here on the SOI Consortium website. See his slide 12 for an indication of how 45RFSOI fits into the overall picture. [caption id="attachment_11482" align="alignnone" width="768"] Slide 12 from Peter Rabbeni's talk at the RF-SOI Symposium in Shanghai. (Courtesy: GlobalFoundries and the SOI Consortium).[/caption] As they explain it, next-generation systems are moving to frequencies above 24GHz, so higher performance RF silicon solutions are required to exploit the large available bandwidth in the mmWave spectrum. GF’s 45RFSOI platform is optimized for beam forming FEMs, with features that improve RF performance through combining high-frequency transistors, high-resistivity SOI substrates and ultra-thick copper wiring. Moreover, the SOI technology enables easy integration of power amplifiers, switches, LNAs, phase shifters, up/down converters and VCO/PLLs that lowers cost, size and power compared to competing technologies targeting tomorrow’s multi-gigabit-per-second communication systems, including internet broadband satellite, smartphones and 5G infrastructure. Psemi and Anokiwave are among those companies at the forefront of 45RFSOI use. Citing the drive to deliver faster, higher-quality video, and multimedia content and services Anokiwave CEO Bob Donahue said, “GF's RF SOI technology leadership and 45RFSOI platform enables Anokiwave to develop differentiated solutions designed to operate between the mmWave and sub-6GHz frequency band for high-speed wireless communications and networks.” The production line is in East Fishkill, N.Y.

ASN asked Carlos Mazure and Giorgio Cesana, the Executive Directors of the SOI Consortium, to take a moment to share their outlook for 2018. Here’s what they had to say. First of all, we’d like to wish everybody in the SOI ecosystem a safe, happy and prosperous 2018. We just finished up a great year, and now look forward to exciting prospects in the months to come. Taking a quick look back, 2017 was marked by significant growth for RF-SOI markets, and with key product announcements for FD-SOI (accompanied by a very positive change in how it is viewed). In both domains, the foundries announced their roadmaps, so now the current sweet spots and future directions are clearly established. Let’s take a moment to consider RF-SOI. As those following wireless markets know, RF-SOI has been the basis for antenna front-end modules in all the world’s smart phones for a few years now. With 2018, we see the industry turn its attention to 5G, with sub-6GHz in priority but also addressing the mmW space. Thanks to various flavors of RF-SOI, and RF integration in FD-SOI, we’ll move into a new phase where wireless will get faster and lower power than ever before. This will be a hot topic in both the SOI Consortium symposiums around the world this year, and in articles coming your way here in ASN. Another hot topic will be exciting new products coming out on FD-SOI. Chip design and manufacturing is of course always a fairly long process, and we’ve talked about the importance of building the ecosystem over the last few years. Now, a good ecosystem is in place. The design tools are ready and validated at the fabs, and key IP is ready. Of course with time there will be more and more IP, but lack of IP is no longer a barrier to design starts. Embedded memory – eMRAM – is another subject that designers want to learn more about, so that will be part of what we’ll be covering. [caption id="attachment_11476" align="alignleft" width="247"] Photo courtesy: SOI Consortium / Adele Hars[/caption] Last year we saw a growing list of successful FD-SOI tape-outs. In 2018, these chips will be ramping in volume. So this year, we look at products. We’ll be inviting those companies that are ramping in silicon to present their chips at the various symposia we organize around the world: Silicon Valley in the spring, Tokyo in the summer, China in the fall. Our symposia will again be accompanied by tutorial days, which have been very popular and successful. In this year’s tutorials there will be a particular focus on RF, analog and mixed-signal design, and they’ll dive deeper into how to use back biasing techniques for further boosting performance and lowering power. So we’re at the beginning of what should be a very exciting year. We’d like to take a moment to thank all the member companies in the SOI Consortium for their enthusiastic support. And we look forward to welcoming new members over the course of this year. With warm regards, Giorgio Cesana and Carlos Mazure Executive Directors of the SOI Consortium