Freescale is bringing out its first 45nm Silicon On Insulator (SOI) products and says it will be one of the first companies to use 32nm SOI processes.

"We're bringing up the first 45nm SOI products as we speak", said Rich Beyer, Chairman and CEO of Freescale at the Freescale Technology Forum 2008 in Paris this week. The first 45nm products are network processors.

Compared to bulk CMOS, SOI adds 30 per cent more performance at the same level of power dissipation, or 30 per cent less power for the same level of performance.

The 45nm process was developed at Crolles 2 in association with NXP and STMicroelectronics before the alliance disintegrated at the beginning of the year, and Freescale went off to join the IBM process alliance.

Asked if Crolles was quicker to finalise its 45nm process than IBM, Beyer replied: "They're at par."

Beyer is happy with his fab-lite strategy. "It's inappropriate to build a 300mm fab", said Beyer, "so many of our products do not require advanced geometries, for instance analogue, microcontrollers, and some of the industrial products. We have eight inch and six inch fabs, we have a significant amount of production capacity. If you exclude wireless, you don't need to be at the cutting edge of advanced CMOS."

Asked if his fab-lite strategy was vulnerable to the foundries cutting back capex to force up wafer prices, Beyer replied: "The argument that says they're cutting back on capex so there'll be a massive shortage of wafers is not true Whenever you have a discussion with a foundry they're always out of capacity. Then you get a call: 'Do you need any more wafers?' It's a natural part of our industry."

"As a supplier you either have to live or die by the market price on the spot market and accept that," added Beyer, "or, and this is where our model is different, you engage with partners over a long period of time, which includes reduction-pricing over a long period of time, so they don't increase prices."

Freescale's fab partners are Chartered Semiconductor of Singapore, which is also part of the IBM alliance, UMC and TSMC. It hasn't used IBM yet, said Beyer.

See also: Mannerisms, the blog of David Manners. Updated twice daily, it's the distinctive, entertaining, authoritative and never dull commentary on the semiconductor industry, from someone who knows. Sign up for the Mannerisms eNewsletter.

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