Smart Cut
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Smart Cut is a silicon on insulator (SOI) technology developed by SOITEC, consisting in a materials engineering process used in the semiconductor industry. Smart Cut’s unique structure is based on the technical principles of ion implantation and wafer bonding. Functioning like an atomic scalpel, Smart Cut allows transfer of thin layers of monocrystalline material onto a mechanical support. A very thin perfect silicon layer is transferred onto a silicon support wafer, which has been covered with an insulating layer of silicon dioxide.
The resulting SOI wafer is now ready for the microchip manufacturing process.
[edit] Industry
SOI wafers are produced by one of two main methods, both of which rely on ion implantation:
- SIMOX - Separation by IMplantation of OXygen: Oxygen can be implanted at high energy into a silicon substrate, at a high enough dose that subsequent high temperature annealing forms an oxide layer underneath the surface layer of silicon. The oxide is an insulator, thus producing a silicon on insulator (SOI) structure.
- Smart Cut: First, oxidized surfaces are grown on two wafers, and then bonded together. Most of the top wafer is then cleaved away along a band of hydrogen bubbles which form from implanted ions. The thin layer of silicon that is left behind is isolated from the substrate by what were originally the surface oxide layers.
A key advantage of Smart Cut compared to other SOI approaches is that it relies on existing standard microelectronic manufacturing equipment. As a result, this innovative technology is the only industrial process in use today that enables high-volume production of SOI wafers.
