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To: Jeff Fox who wrote (61749)	8/3/1998 11:04:00 PM
From: Time Traveler	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Jeff, Is this SOI the same as SOS? If it is or even similar, you are right about IBM's great hype. CMOS/SOS has been around since the late 70's. This technology is very popular among defend micro-electronics industry, being rad-hard and price no object. Time Traveler

To: Jeff Fox who wrote (61749)	8/3/1998 11:43:00 PM
From: Eric Yang	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

"All the IBM hype is over SOI? That's it???...Sorry - I've been "offline" a week or so. I saw that IBM "did it again" announcing old forgotten processing ideas like they are the latest grease news. Can't believe how the press is yukking this stuff up" You guys are so close minded it is pathetic. Yes, SOI (silicon on insulator) and SOS (silicon on sapphire) have been around for over 2 decades. While there are many technical advantages, technical barriers made it cost prohibitive for general mass production application. The whole point of IBM's announcement yesterday was that it has developed ways to solve these problems. The technology breakthrough allows SOI based CMOS to be produced relatively cheaply. Prototype of PowerPC implementing SOI has been produced already. Mass production is scheduled for early 1999. "I hold in my hand an SOI chip fabricated by HP in 1982! This is one of my long cherished souvenirs. It is CMOS on sapphire to be precise, and was suppose to put Intel and everybody else outta business with great performance and low power consumption." Please read above... "Too expensive and too low yielding. Silicon just doesn't like to crystallize flawlessly grown on other stuff - well - not to level achieved with ingot growth anyway. Do you know what technical breakthrough means? It means overcoming previous technical barriers. Unlike early attempts to grow silicon on top of sapphire, silicon oxide or other insulators, they are using oxygen implantation methods for creating the insulator layer underneath silicon layer via diffusion. Thus by passing the difficulty of growing flawless crystals on top of insulators. Pull your head out of the sand, take some time to read a few articles. It'll do you good. eet.com news.com techweb.com chips.ibm.com ebnews.com eet.com Eric

To: Jeff Fox who wrote (61749)	8/3/1998 11:45:00 PM
From: ron delany	Respond to of 186894

Jeff Regarding that process (SOI), maybe they've figured out how to do it?

To: Jeff Fox who wrote (61749)	8/4/1998 10:40:00 AM
From: rudedog	Respond to of 186894

Jeff - "Everything old is new again" !!! I am looking forward to an IBM announcement of a breakthrough in josephson junction computing. Any day now... <VBG>

To: Jeff Fox who wrote (61749)	8/4/1998 1:58:00 PM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Jeff - Re: "Silicon just doesn't like to crystallize flawlessly grown on other stuff - " I think IBM's technology uses bulk silicon with a heavy implant of Oxygen a few tenths of a micron or so below the surface. It appears they use a low, slow implant rate - only 20 wafers per DAY per implanter - that's about 1 wafer per hour per machine. After a special anneal cycle, the oxygen implant coalesces to an oxide layer SiO2 - presumably with a low defect density in the silicon above the oxide. The technology may be useful, ultimately. By the way - Intel ALSO had a CMOS on Saphire program in the early 1980's - staffed with ex-HP people ! They threw in the towel when their pure CMOS on P-type silicon was recognized as a major breakthrough. Paul Paul