News

17 July 2006

Soitec reports record sales up 67%; Picogiga up 110%

For its fiscal first-quarter 2006-2007 (to the end of June), Soitec of Bernin, France, which makes engineered substrates including silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and strained SOI (sSOI) using its Smart Cut process, has reported record sales of 85.7m Euros (up 67.1% year-on-year).

SOI wafer sales were 82.2m Euros (up 10.8% sequentially and 67.0% year-on-year). This was driven mainly by 300mm wafer sales up 109.6% year-on-year to 67% of total wafer sales (following installation of two more
300mm lines earlier this year).

Boosted by RF applications, sales for Picogiga, which makes GaN-on-silicon substrates, grew 110.6% year-on-year to 2.7m Euros. Licensing revenues were stable at 0.8m Euros.

SOI demand continues to gain momentum for high-performance, low-power advanced microprocessors, as well as with foundries for new applications such as game consoles and media rich content products for both the business computing and the mass consumer markets, says Soitec.

Soitec has confirmed its guidance for full-year sales of 400m Euros, supported by renewed contractual commitments with major customers.

To support Grenoble-based TraciT Technologies and increase production capacity, Soitec has purchased 1300m2 of equipped cleanroom space adjacent to the Bernin facility, providing facilities for the strategic R&D investment project NanoSmart (a partnership between Soitec and CEA Leti).

Also, following the strategic announcement and capital increase in March, Soitec has chosen an industrial site in Singapore for its future 300mm SOI wafer plant. Production is planned to start in mid-2008. Full capacity should be 1m wafer starts per year.

Visit: http://www.soitec.com