11 July 2018

Leti and Soitec launch Substrate Innovation Center as part of latest five-year partnership

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Grenoble-based micro/nanotechnology R&D center CEA-Leti and Soitec of Bernin, France, which makes engineered substrates including silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers, have announced a new collaboration and five-year partnership agreement to drive R&D on advanced engineered substrates, including SOI and beyond.

The agreement extends the traditional Leti-Soitec partnership to include the launch of a prototyping hub associating equipment partners to pioneer new materials. Located on Leti’s campus, the Substrate Innovation Center will feature access to shared Leti-Soitec expertise around a focused pilot line. Key benefits for partners include access to early exploratory sampling and prototyping, collaborative analysis, and early learning at the substrate level, eventually leading to streamlined product viability and roadmap planning at the system level.

Leading chip makers and foundries worldwide use Soitec products to manufacture chips for consumer applications targeting performance, connectivity and efficiency with extremely low energy consumption. Applications include smart phones, data centers, automotive, imagers, and medical and industrial equipment, but this list is growing, along with the need for flexibility to explore new applications starting at the substrate level. At the Substrate Innovation Center, Leti and Soitec engineers will explore and develop innovative substrate features, expanding to new fields and applications with a special focus on 4G/5G connectivity, artificial intelligence, sensors and display, automotive, photonics, and edge computing.

“The Substrate Innovation Center will unleash the power of substrate R&D collaboration beyond the typical product roadmaps, beyond the typical constraints,” says Soitec’s CEO Paul Boudre. “The Substrate Innovation Center is a one-of-a-kind opportunity open to all industry partners within the semiconductor value chain.”

Whereas a typical manufacturing facility has limited flexibility to try new solutions and cannot afford to take risks with prototyping, the mission is to become the world’s preferred hub for evaluating and designing engineered substrates to address the future needs of the industry, inclusive of all the key players, from compound suppliers to product designers. Using quality-controlled cleanroom facilities and the latest industry-grade equipment and materials, Leti and Soitec engineers will conduct testing and evaluation at all levels of advanced substrate R&D.

“Leti and Soitec’s collaboration on SOI and differentiated materials, which extends back to Soitec’s launch in 1992, has produced innovative technologies that are vital to a wide range of consumer and industrial products and components,” comments Leti’s CEO Emmanuel Sabonnadière. “This new common hub at Leti’s campus marks the next step in this ongoing partnership. By jointly working with foundries, fabless, and system companies, we provide our partners with a strong edge for their future products.”

See related items:

Soitec and CEA renew partnership for further five years

Tags: Leti Soitec engineered substrates

Visit: www.soitec.com

Visit: www.leti.fr