Andes, Rockchip to Join <span style='color:red'>FD-SOI</span> Club
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Andes, Rockchip to Join FD-SOI Club

　　Design engineers living in Silicon Valley have long viewed fully-depleted silicon on insulator (FD-SOI) like the story of the boy who cried wolf. Its massive adoption is always around the corner but never really here — at least not in the Valley.　　In contrast to conventional bulk CMOS technology that chip giants like Intel continue to use for each process node, FD-SOI is something “new” and “foreign” for many U.S. designers. The absence of an FD-SOI ecosystem was always a reason for the naysayers to dismiss the technology. They would certainly never gamble on it.　　Nonetheless, FD-SOI has champions like NXP Semiconductors and STMicroelectronics in Europe. Earlier this year, NXP revealed plans to go all in with FD-SOI, starting with its lowest power general-purpose applications processors, called i.MX 7ULP.　　Common thread: IoT　　Meanwhile, new developments are unfolding in Asia, with Globalfoundries naming names among those embracing FD-SOI.　　Companies fingered by Globalfoundries as its FD-SOI partners include Taiwan’s Andes Technology Corp., China’s RockChip, Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics Group and Hunan Goke Microelectronics. The common thread? None other than IoT chips.　　In particular, Andes Technology’s decision to go with FD-SOI is significant.　　Andes and Globalfoundries recently announced that Andes Technology's 32-bit CPU IP cores have been implemented on GF's 22nm FD-SOI (22FDX) technology. GF's 22FDX offers “the optimum combination of performance, power consumption and cost for IoT, mainstream mobile, RF connectivity and networking applications,” according to the foundry.　　In an interview with EE Times, Frankwell Lin, president of Andes Technology, said, FD-SOI “will benefit from our promotion in ultra-low power application such as IoT, mobile, low power 5G, battery-backed consumer electronics and more.”　　Andes, aided by a minority investment from MediaTek, focuses on the embedded market, with its CPU licensees finding enough niches to get around ARM’s stranglehold. Andes CPU cores apply to touch-panel controllers, WiFi, Bluetooth, FM, GPS controllers, and now sensor hubs targeted at the IoT segment. Incidentally, MediaTek, which is shifting toward IoT chips, is also a licensee of Andes’ IP.　　Lin told us that FD-SOI “coincidentally fits Andes Technology’s product development direction.” He said, “Our cores focused on low power and high efficiency have been widely adopted to wireless connectivity fields such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth, BT audio, IoT.”　　For example, Andes has been addressing connectivity applications with N9 and N13. Additionally, N10/D10 has been used for image processing. Andes’ N7, N8, N9, N10 have been applied to various IoT devices including wearables, smart sensors, Lin said.　　“Now with our next generation new cores N25 (32bit), NX25 (64bit) supporting RISC-V, together with Globalfoundries, we will bring more benefit to worldwide customers,” he said.　　How so Lin said, “In consumer electronics, FD-SOI can provide a wide range of performance and power consumption options using body bias. This is particularly true for battery-powered devices.” He said the same applies to touch-panel controllers, because “while a touch controller has a very short duty cycle, it requires significant computing power when it is active doing multi-finger gestures. It also requires very low-power consumption most of the time due to the nature of the end devices.”　　Lin concluded: “It happens that the end market for FD-SOI aligns to our product line pretty well. A lot of our lower to mid-end IPs are already adopted in this market including N7, N8 and N9. We’ll see more adoption of Andes cores in the FD-SOI process in the very near future.”　　Globalfoundries bets on China　　Meanwhile, Globalfoundries, whose growth plan depends on China, unveiled last week three Chinese customers adopting its new 22FDX technology.　　Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics Group will adopt the 22FDX platform to design and develop highly reliable servers, AI and smart IoT intelligent products in 2018, according to Globalfoundries. Rockchip will use 22FDX to design ultra-low power WiFi smart hardware SoC and high-performance AI processers. Hunan Goke Microelectronics is planning to adopt 22FDX in its next generation of IoT chips.　　As previously reported, Globalfoundries is building an advanced 300mm semiconductor fab in Chengdu. Construction is said to be on track for completion in early 2018.　　Soitec to quadruple FD-SOI wafer production　　Separately, Soitec, a leading supplier of SOI and FD-SOI wafers, recently updated its capital expenditure plan to invest 40 million euros (about $46.5 million) — spread between fiscal years 2018 and 2019 — so it can quadruple FD-SOI production to 400,000 FD-SOI wafers (300mm) per year.　　In September, Soitec announced plans to launch a pilot production line for FD-SOI wafers in its Singapore fab. Describing its decision as based on “direct customer demand,” the French company called the move “the first stage in beginning FD-SOI production in Singapore and providing multi-site FD-SOI substrate sourcing to the global semiconductor market in order to address long-term demand for FD-SOI wafers.”　　Soitec also announced a five-year agreement with Globalfoundries to ensure the volume supply of state-of-the-art fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) wafers.　　eMRAM, RF options for FD-SOI　　FD-SOI proponents see its ecosystem building steadily and solidly, while the technology adds more options.　　Globalfoundries and Samsung are both working to integrate more options to enable the combination of data processing (FD-SOI) with connectivity (RF option) and memory (eMRAM function) on a single FD-SOI-based chip.　　More specifically, Globalfoundries is making available its radio frequency/analog PDK for next-generation wireless and IoT chipsets. It is offering its mmWave PDK for emerging high-volume applications such as 5G, automotive radar, WiGig, SatComm and wireless backhaul. Globalfoundries also said eMRAM technology is available on its 22nm FD-SOI platform, offering an embedded memory solution for broad consumer and industrial applications.　　Samsung Electronics also announced derivatives that include RF and eMRAM, taped out its first eMRAM test chip based on 28FDS process technology. So far, Samsung has taped out more than 40 products based on the FD-SOI process for various customers in connection with applications dedicated to IT networks and servers, consumer goods, IoT and automotive.
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Release time：2017-11-03 00:00 reading：1315 Continue reading>>
NXP Shows First <span style='color:red'>FD-SOI</span> Chips
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NXP Shows First FD-SOI Chips

　　NXP will ship this year as many as five SoCs made in Samsung’s 28nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) process, including one that has been sampling for six months. Samsung is expected to announce its FD-SOI roadmap in May and is already working on RF and in-house embedded MRAM for it.　　An NXP executive showed the first samples of the products at an event here, a key milestone in a long journey for FD-SOI. The next big step is finding an embedded non-volatile memory for the process, given embedded flash is expected to hit limits at 14nm.　　A Globalfoundries executive declined to say when it expects to ship the first commercial chip in its 22nm FD-SOI or how many tapeouts it has completed in the process. The company announced its first FD-SOI tapeout last year and said it now has 70 customer engagements.　　“Our FD-SOI business is small right now, but it will be mainstream,” said Ryan Lee, a vice president of foundry marketing for Samsung.　　One chip designer at the event said his company has been interested in FD-SOI for a long time. It made a test chip at STMicroelectronics but chose to work on commercial designs with Samsung because Globalfoundries was not ready until Sanjay Jha became the foundry’s CEO, after the fabless company made its decision.　　NXP described four 64-bit ARMv8 and one 32-bit ARMv7 embedded SoCs under its i.MX brand, three now in production in Samsung’s FD-SOI process. Over the next two years, the family will cover a performance range that scales by a factor of 25, five times more than its planar-based i.MX chips, each design optimized for different performance and power characteristics.　　“I don’t think that would be possible without 28nm FD-SOI,” said Geoff Lees, general manager of NXP’s microcontroller group.　　A high-end automotive SoC will run up to eight 1080-progressive displays and run without a fan. “It’s operating in conditions that would kill a cellphone,” with three orders of magnitude better reliability, Lees said.　　An i.MX 7ULP announced in March includes independent application and real-time domains. It targets a wide range of markets from home automation to wearables.　　Long term, Lees said FD-SOI promises better ADCs and lower power radios. For example, he expects single-antenna 802.11n Wi-Fi on the power budget of Zigbee and other 802.15.4 protocols and an ability to take “Bluetooth Low Energy to new record
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Release time：2017-04-13 00:00 reading：1842 Continue reading>>

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