Engineered substrates for future More Moore and More than Moore integrated devices

In 1991, M. Bruel (1) invented and patented the Smart Cut technology to fabricate Silicon On Insulator (SOI) substrates. The process relies on the transfer of a high quality single crystal layer from one wafer to another: implantation of gaseous ions in a single crystal wafer, direct bonding on a stiffener and splitting (Fig 1). The invention of this SOI process combined with the entrepreneurship of SOITEC paved the way to high quality SOI substrates mass production. Today, SOI is a mature product (up to 300mm diameter) and now developments are focused on the integration of new materials and functionalities in order to improve device performances and enlarge the application spectrum.