Engineered substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution Bernard ASPAR EVP Communication & Power Business Unit, Soitec SOI Consortium, Shanghai, September 2018
1 FEM market 2 RF-SOI 3 POI
RF FEM market is solid and continues to grow by more than 2x (2017-2023) 3x Switches 3x Filters Source: Yole, July 2018 Sept. 2018 3 SOI Consortium, Shanghai Engineered Substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution
Number of bands and bands combinations FEM market dynamic 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 60 50 40 30 Expecting >50mm² RF-SOI inside a 5G FEM RF-SOI average area (mm²) in a front end module LTE A Switches Tuners LNA CA DL LTE A PRO Switches Tuners LNA MIMO 5G<6GHz Switches Tuners LNA MIMO CA UL Bands 20 3G ASM LTE Switches Tuners 10 2G 0 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 Source: Soitec internal Sept. 2018 4 SOI Consortium, Shanghai Engineered Substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution
1 FEM market 2 RF-SOI 3 POI
RF-SOI is the standard technology for FEM, switches, antenna tuner,... Antenna tuner RF-SOI Switch RF-SOI Diplexer Coupler RF-SOI LNA RF-SOI PA 3G LTE RF-SOI Sept. 2018 6 SOI Consortium, Shanghai Engineered Substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution
Sept. 2018 7 SOI Consortium, Shanghai Engineered Substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution
RF-SOI: in strong demand and growing at 15% CAGR RF-SOI standard technology in FEM Switches, tuners, LNAs RF-SOI demand continues to explode Expecting to break the 2M wafers (200 mm equivalent) by 2020 RF-SOI volume per year (Kwafers - 200mm eq.) 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Source: Soitec internal Volume(actual) Volume forecast Sept. 2018 8 SOI Consortium, Shanghai Engineered Substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution
Soitec RF-SOI wafers: HR-SOI & RFeSI substrates HR-SOI RFeSI Enhanced Signal Integrity Value proposition RFeSI vs. HR-SOI performance Mono-crystal Top Material Buried Oxide PERFORMANCE Higher Linearity Lower RF losses Lower crosstalk High quality passives RF Loss COST Crosstalk Linearity Lower than GaAs and MEMS Integration with switch, amplifiers and passives $$$ Thermal Conductivity Die Size HR-SOI High Q Passives RFeSI RFeSI relies on a unique Trap Rich layer that will limit high frequency signal propagation in the substrate - boosting device RF performance AREA Available in 200/300mm Lower die size Source: Soitec internal Sept. 2018 9 SOI Consortium, Shanghai Engineered Substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution
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: LNA performances Logic shrink mmw capability Soitec fabs in Bernin + SIngapore Sept. 2018 10 SOI Consortium, Shanghai Engineered Substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution
Soitec is supporting both 200mm and 300mm growth 200mm SOI Soitec Bernin I, France HVM 300mm SOI Soitec Bernin II, France HVM 900K wafers/.y capacity with plan to extend to 950Kw/y Simgui, China Ramp to HVM Pasir Ris, Singapore Ready HVM 650K wafers/y. capacity with plan to extend to 800K Total 200mm capacity 1.1M wafers/y. by FY 19 (0.5M/y equivalent 300mm) 150K wafers/y. capacity Plan to extend to support China & WWM Contemplated capacity: 800K wafers/y + EPI capacity Sept. 2018 11 SOI Consortium, Shanghai Engineered Substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution Total potential 300mm capacity Up to 1.5 M wafers/y.
1 FEM market 2 RF-SOI 3 POI
New substrate to address the 4G/5G filters evolution Piezo on Insulator engineered substrates (POI) Requirements : Larger bandwidth filter POI value: Improved coupling (K²) Integration on same die Higher frequency bands Thin piezo structure Filter thickness Coupling factor k² Band density Increasing # of band combinations Built-in temperature compensation Multiple filters integration Temperature compensation Max frequency Quality factor (Bode Q max value) Piezo on Insulator substrate (POI) Source: Soitec internal SAW on POI Bulk SAW Bulk BAW Sept. 2018 13 SOI Consortium, Shanghai Engineered Substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution
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 SAW on POI resonator response Resonator performance measurement demonstrates POI can address the most challenging 4G/5G sub 6GHz bands requirements Source: Soitec Sept. 2018 14 SOI Consortium, Shanghai Engineered Substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution
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 Sept. 2018 15 SOI Consortium, Shanghai Engineered Substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution
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 Sept. 2018 16 SOI Consortium, Shanghai Engineered Substrates - at the heart of 4G/5G FEM evolution
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