Sony To Use FD-SOI in Stacked Image Sensors

Samsung goes for FD-SOI mass production

Junko Yoshida, EETimes
1/21/2016 10:30 AM EST

TOKYO—For chip designers pondering the next-node choices for their new SoCs, the FD-SOI Forum held here Thursday (Jan. 21) yielded news they could use.

Key developments were:

• The mass production capacity of Samsung’s 28nm FD-SOI technology has matured.
• RF integration in FD-SOI chips is fast becoming a reality, as Samsung is offering a production version of its process development kit (PDK) for RF in the second quarter of this year.
• Globalfoundries’ 22nm FD-SOI platform, called 22nm FDX, offers ultra-lower power consumption with 0.4 volt operation.
• Globalfoundries now says that its 22nm FDX will be ready for high volume production in mid-2017.

But the biggest FD-SOI news, which surfaced as chatter and whispering during coffee breaks at the Forum (rather than on the formal agenda), is that Sony is looking to use FD-SOI for the image signal processor (ISP) on stacked CMOS Image Sensors (CIS).

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