Samsung Endorses FD-SOI!

This is probably one of the biggest stories we will cover this month, if not this year, absolutely. In partnership with STMicroelectronics, Samsung will manufacture 28nm FD-SOI chips for the fabless semiconductor community starting now. This proves without a shadow of a doubt that Samsung is serious about the foundry business.

The executives on this briefing were: Shawn Han, Vice President of Marketing, Samsung Foundry, Kelvin Low, Senior Director of Marketing, Samsung Foundry, and Jean-Marc Chery, Chief Operating Office, STMicroelectronics. The full slide presentation can be found HERE.

The previous assumption was that SMIC was the FD-SOI manufacturing partner mentioned in the STMicroelectronics announcement last month. Well, we were all wrong. SemiWiki has been covering FDSOI for the last year and based on the analytics we should not have been surprised at the Samsung announcement but more on that later. Here are the top ten points made in the call:

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ST and Samsung have worked together since 2009 through the International Semiconductor Developer Alliance and Samsung is ST’s foundry customer for 32nm and 28nm bulk.

28nm FD-SOI PDKs, Design flow, and IP is available to Samsung customers today.

28nm FD-SOI production will begin in 1H 2015.

28nm FD-SOI is gate-first technology and will use the existing Samsung 28nm manufacturing capacity built mainly for Apple (same backend process).

28nm FD-SOI manufacturing costs are similar to current Samsung gate-first HKMG 28nm offering.

28nm FD-SOI does NOT use expensive double patterning.

28nm FD-SOI density is comparable to 28nm HKMG.

28nm FD-SOI is competitive on power/performance with 20nm planar.

28nm FD-SOI is perfect for low cost mobile and IoT designs.

This announcement proves the FD-SOI doubters wrong!

The first real mention of FD-SOI on SemiWiki was the FD-SOI Wiki published on 6/29/2012. You can also check the STMicroelectronics landing page for more FD-SOI articles. According to the latest version of Google Analytics more than 100,000 users read these articles which resulted in 150+ comments. FD-SOI has also been one of the top trending search terms for the past 9 months. Thanks to Google we also know who read what from where, the links they clicked on and what they had for lunch, which is why we know FD-SOI is the real deal. That’s what crowd sourcing is all about.

About STMicroelectronics
ST is a global leader in the semiconductor market serving customers across the spectrum of sense and power and automotive products and embedded processing solutions. From energy management and savings to trust and data security, from healthcare and wellness to smart consumer devices, in the home, car and office, at work and at play, ST is found everywhere microelectronics make a positive and innovative contribution to people’s life. By getting more from technology to get more from life, ST stands for life.augmented.In 2013, the Company’s net revenues were $8.08 billion. Further information on ST can be found at www.st.com.

Samsung Endorses FD-SOI!

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