On the left, CEMES' expertise concerns the precipitation and growth of implanted hydrogen, responsible for the fracture exploited in the Smart Cut technology. On the right, wafers with thin layers of various materials on insulating substrate (XOI) produced by Soitec.

For more than 30 years, researchers at CEMES have been working on ion implantation, defect formation, the

diffusion and precipitation of implanted impurities, and CEMES thus significantly contributed to the state of the art of the field at the international level.
SOITEC, created in 1992, is the world leader in the production of Silicon On Insulator (SOI) wafers used in the manufacture of chips that are found in smartphones, tablets, computers, computer servers or data centers. To do this, it uses the Smart Cut ^TM technology based on Hydrogen ion implantation and molecular bonding.
It is in this context that CEMES became, since 1996, a "historical academic partner" of Soitec and has, over time and while identifying the different mechanisms involved, contributed to the improvement of the process and to its extension to the transfer of other semiconductor materials.
Today Soitec and CEMES have decided to expand and extend this collaboration through the establishment of two research contracts.
The first concerns the understanding of the physical phenomena involved during the implantation of hydrogen ions in piezoelectric oxides, the origin of the degradation of the physical properties observed as well as the means of reducing or restoring them. This work must allow the manufacture of thin monocrystalline piezoelectric layers on insulator as required for acoustic filter applications.
The second concerns the identification of the type and origin of residual defects found in very low concentrations during the fabrication of ultrathin (<10 nm) silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) layers used by almost all the microelectronic industries.
These contracts are based partly on the experimental resources available at CEMES (ion implantor, TEM, XRD, Raman) but also on the scientific background of its researchers, both in ion implantation and materials. Two Cifre PhD students were recruited who work alternately on the Toulouse and Grenoble sites.

Personal involved

• CEMES
  N. Cherkashin (CR)
  A. Claverie (DR)
  S. Schamm-Chardon (DR)
• SOITEC
  D. Landru (Ingénieur R&D)
  O. Kononchuck (Expert Scientifique)
  A. Louiset (Doc Cifre)
  J. Roi (Doc Cifre)

Contacts

claverie at cemes.fr , cherkashin at cemes.fr

See also :

https://www.soitec.com/fr/entreprise/partenaires