engineered substrates - at the heart of 4g/5g fem...

Bernard ASPAR

EVP Communication & Power Business Unit, Soitec

SOI Consortium, Shanghai, September 2018

Engineered substrates

- at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution

1

2

3

FEM market

POI

RF-SOI

RF FEM market is solid and continues to grow

by more than 2x (2017-2023)

Sept. 2018 SOI Consortium, Shanghai Engineered Substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution3

Source: Yole, July 2018

3x Switches

3x Filters

FEM market dynamic


Nu

mb

er

of b

an

ds a

nd

ba

nd

s c

om

bin

atio

ns

LTE advanced and 5G roll out will continue to drive

FEM complexity increase:

More bands and bands combinations

Larger bands and higher frequency bands

Carrier aggregation uplink: double the main path

MIMO 4x4

More antennas: increase the number of diversity modules

Expecting >50mm² RF-SOI inside a 5G FEM

RF-SOI average area (mm²) in a front end module

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020

2G

3GASM

LTESwitches Tuners

LTE A SwitchesTunersLNACA DL

LTE A

PRO

Switches

Tuners

LNA MIMO

5G<6GHz

Switches

Tuners

LNA

MIMO CA

UL Bands

Source: Soitec internal

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2

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FEM market

POI

RF-SOI

RF-SOI is the standard technology for FEM, switches,

antenna tuner, ...

6

✓

Diplexer

Coupler

PA

LNA

3GLTE

RF-SOI

RF-SOI

RF-SOI

Switch RF-SOI

Antenna

tuner RF-SOI

SOI Consortium, Shanghai Engineered Substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolutionSept. 2018

RF-SOI: in strong demand and growing at 15% CAGR


0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

RF-SOI volume per year (Kwafers - 200mm eq.)

Volume(actual) Volume forecast

RF-SOI standard technology in FEMSwitches, tuners, LNAs

RF-SOI demand continues to explodeExpecting to break the 2M wafers (200 mm equivalent)by 2020


Soitec RF-SOI wafers: HR-SOI & RFeSI™ substrates


HR-SOI

RFeSI relies on a unique Trap Rich

layer that will limit high frequency

signal propagation in the substrate

- boosting device RF performance

Value proposition

$$$COST

Lower than GaAs and MEMS

Integration with switch, amplifiers and passives

Available in 200/300mm

RFeSI

Enhanced Signal Integrity

Mono-crystal Top Material

Buried Oxide

PERFORMANCE

Higher Linearity

Lower RF losses

Lower crosstalk

High quality passives

AREA

Lower die size

RF Loss

Linearity

High Q Passives

Die Size

ThermalConductivity

Crosstalk

RFeSI vs. HR-SOI performance

HR-SOI RFeSI


200mm and 300mm required

to address growth and technology requirements


200mm production is and will remain very strong:

Majority of current products

Well established ecosystem

Will continue to grow

Strong partnership with SIMGUI

300mm is in high volume production and will capture

part of the growth:

Advanced nodes:

Soitec fabs in Bernin + SIngapore

LNA performances

Logic shrink

mmW capability

Soitec is supporting both 200mm and 300mm growth


650K wafers/y. capacity with

plan to extend to 800K

300mm SOI200mm SOI

Soitec Bernin II, France

HVM

Contemplated capacity:

800K wafers/y

+

EPI capacity

Total potential 300mm

capacity

Up to 1.5 M wafers/y.

150K wafers/y. capacity

Plan to extend to support

China & WWM

Pasir Ris, Singapore

Ready HVM

Total 200mm capacity

→ 1 .1M wafers/y.

by FY’19(0.5M/y equivalent 300mm)

11

900K wafers/.y capacity with

plan to extend to 950Kw/y

Soitec Bernin I, France

HVM

Simgui, China

Ramp to HVM

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FEM market

POI

RF-SOI

New substrate to address the 4G/5G filters evolution

Piezo on Insulator engineered substrates (POI)


Piezo on Insulator substrate (POI)Source: Soitec internal

Requirements :

Larger bandwidth filter

Higher frequency bands

Band density

Increasing # of band

combinations

POI value:

Improved coupling (K²)

Thin piezo structure

Built-in temperature

compensation

Multiple filters integration

Integration on samedie

Coupling factor k²

Max frequency

Quality factor (Bode Q max

value)

Temperaturecompensation

Filter thickness

SAW on POI Bulk SAW Bulk BAW

Example of SAW resonator devices on POI


Internal device performed using frec|n|sys

SAW design and processing

High performance SAW guided mode on thin film Smart Cut POI

• Bode Q max value > 1600 @ 1.6 GHz

• Coupling factor Ks² > 8% for frequency > 1.6 GHz

• TCF measured < 10 ppm.K-1

Resonator performance measurement

demonstrates POI can address the most

challenging 4G/5G sub 6GHz bands

requirements

SAW on POI resonator response

Source: Soitec

Soitec POI products for SAW filters


LiTaO3 (LTO) on Si - 150mm:

Established process: 1000+ wafers produced

Both Smart Stacking and Smart Cut technologies

Very Thin Piezo layer capability:

• Piezo layer thickness down to 350 nm

• 5% Piezo film uniformity

• Lower than 40 nm range demonstrated

Activity located in Bernin - Dedicated clean room

150 mm diameter LTO/Si structure

Closing Remarks


RF-SOI demand remains strong and still growing driven by

4G LTE advanced and upcoming 5G sub 6GHz

Soitec is adding RFSOI manufacturing capacity directly

(300mm) or through partnership (200mm with Simgui)

POI: a new set of engineered substrate to produce high

performing filters addressing the most difficult cellular bands

Soitec is supporting the 5G Front End evolution by developing

new engineered substrates


Thank you

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