SOI Circuit Design Concepts

Market demand for microprocessor performance has motivated continued scaling of CMOS through a succession of lithography generations. Quantum mechanical limitations to continued scaling are becoming readily apparent. Partially Depleted Silicon-on-Insulator (PD-SOI) technology is emerging as a promising means of addressing these limitations. It also introduces additional design complexity which must be well understood. This text first introduces the student or practising engineer to SOI device physics and its fundamental idiosyncrasies. It then walks the reader through realizations of these mechanisms which are observed in common high-speed microprocessor designs. Rules of thumb and comparisons to conventional bulk CMOS are offered to guide implementation. SOI's ultimate advantage, however, may lie in the unique circuit topologies it supports; a number of these novel new approaches is also described.