Soitec and CEA-Leti to ally to speed commercial adoption of 3D integration

TOKYO, JAPAN: The Soitec Group, the world's leading supplier of engineered substrates for the microelectronics industry, and CEA-Leti, a leading global research center committed to creating and commercializing innovation in micro- and nanotechnologies, today announced plans to expand their collaboration on wafer-to-wafer 3D integration by offering customers a joint, comprehensive industrial solution.

The global offer envisioned by the long-term partners begins with process customization for prototype demonstration and will include licensing, both in 200mm and 300mm.

3D-level integration allows stacking integrated circuits and connecting them vertically. The technology enables increased performance, smaller form factors, and reduced power consumption, while lowering the costs of next-generation electronic devices.

Potential markets and applications include image sensors, logic on logic, memory on memory, sensors on logic, memory on logic and new heterogeneous solutions such as MEMS on logic and photonics on logic.

Soitec's contribution to the partnership includes its Smart Stacking technology,
which enables wafer-to-wafer-level stacking of partially or fully processed circuits; its low-temperature Smart Cut(TM) process; and the copper-to-copper bonding technology already in development with CEA-Leti. This offer also leverages Soitec's core expertise in wafer bonding and thinning technologies as well as its unique industrial background in this field.

CEA-Leti, likewise, offers broad and deep 3D wafer-to-wafer technology and expertise. These include all the necessary process steps for different 3D approaches, such as connecting vias, and cost-effective technologies such as wafer pre-processing, bonding, thinning and TSV etching and filling, and post-processing wafer assembly.

"As the leaders in the building-block technologies that enable 3D integration at the wafer-to-wafer level, Soitec and Leti are uniquely positioned to offer customers a comprehensive solution," said Andre-Jacques Auberton-Herve, Soitec president and CEO.

"Leveraging Leti's 3D expertise and our well known bonding industrial experience, we can offer customers prototyping solutions as well as the processes they'll need for rapid ramp to full-scale production."

"We are proud to expand our partnership with Soitec and make the Grenoble Valley a center for 3D technology. This partnership will leverage CEA-Leti's extensive work in this area, including our 3D integration technology toolbox," said Laurent Malier, CEO of CEA-Leti.

"Given CEA-Leti and Soitec's successful history of innovation, industrialization and collaboration, we expect our global offer to significantly advance commercial adoption of 3D integration technologies."