SOI technology: An opportunity for RF designers?

Abstract

This last decade Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) MOSFET technology has demonstrated its potentialities for high frequency commercial applications, reaching cutoff frequencies close to 500 GHz. SOI also presents the major advantage of providing high resistivity substrate capabilities, leading to substantially reduced substrate RF losses. High Resistivity SOI is commonly foreseen as a promising substrate for radio frequency integrated circuits and mixed signal applications. In this paper, based on several experimental and simulation results, the interest, limitations but also possible future improvements of the SOI MOS technology are presented.