April 19, 2006 – Silicon Genesis Corp., San Jose, CA, says it has developed a way to manufacture direct silicon bonded substrates (DSB), formed by bonding and electrically attaching a film of single-crystal silicon of differing crystal orientation onto a base substrate.

Specifically, the company developed a method to dissolve the interfacial layer through a proprietary post-process step, noted Francois Henley, president and CEO of SiGen. The company also stated it is working on eliminating the interfacial layer to produce an electrically robust interlayer connection.

Published papers on DSB device performance (as recently as the 2005 IEDM conference, in work by IBM) suggest it has promise as an enhanced bulk-like substrate for future chip manufacturing nodes, Henley noted. “We believe that the bulk-like properties of DSB substrates, combined with its substantial PMOS mobility improvements, can generate substantially higher market demand than SOI technology,” he stated. DSBs exhibit bulk-like properties, unlike silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates, and are fully compatible with existing EDA and circuit design tools, according to the company.

The company is now sampling the substrates to device manufacturers and expects to update progress with the technology within the next few months.