Big Push for SOI
By Ed Sperling
IBM and ARM are teaming up to simplify silicon-on-insulator chip development, cutting the time it takes to bring SOI to the next process node and making it more competitive with CMOS.
The big advantage is that SOI is significantly more energy-efficient than CMOS. But the complexity of developing in SOI has deterred many companies. With increasing pressure on electronics companies to reduce the energy consumption of devices, both IBM and ARM see a major opportunity.
“It’s been hard for companies to see past the challenges of learning a whole new design methodology,” said Joanne Itow, managing director at Semico Research. “They all think SOI has too many idiosyncrasies. ARM’s support provides a significant amount of credibility. And the timing is right. If a company starts a design now, they can have a product ready when 45nm reaches a sweet spot in terms of volume and pricing at the foundries.”
The deal calls for ARM to provide an SOI physical IP library, including standard cell, memory and I/O libraries for IBM’s 45nm SOI foundry. ARM’s entry into this market was made possible by its 2006 acquisition of SOISIC, a French company that was developing physical IP for SOI.
Tom Lantzch, vice president of marketing for the ARM physical IP division, said that SOI offers 30% more power efficiency over bulk CMOS, which is particularly important in such applications as gaming or digital TV where there is constant compression. He said the digitization of almost everything and the need for constant-on functions will push more of the market toward SOI, in part driven by consumer demand and in part by the availability of power in some markets.
SOI has been at a disadvantage in the past, however. It has run several years behind CMOS in terms of reaching the next process node, and subtrate costs have been higher for SOI than CMOS. ARM contends the availability of physical IP for SOI will cut the lag time between process nodes to about a year at 32nm, which is typically faster than most companies can adopt it. In addition, performance will be comparable, and overall differences in pricing will be reduced and offset by gains in power efficiency.
