Nvidia adopts Silicon On Insulator

The SOI Industry Consortium has announced that it now counts Nvidia amongst its members. Formed in October 2007, its aim is to promote and accelerate the adoption of SOI (Silicon On Insulator) technology by the industry.

This technology enables reducing the loss of electrons during their movement in transistors. More specifically, it consists of insulating the transistor with pure silicon exception for a fine layer that is in contact with the transistor and which serves in conducting electrons. By joining this consortium, the firm with the chameleon logo is amongst 22 other companies including AMD, Applied Materials, ARM, Chartered Semiconductor, Freescale Semiconductor, IBM, Samsung, Soitec, ST, Synopsys, TSMC and UMC to name just a few.

The question then arises which future Nvidia products will benefit from SOI and, all things equal in other domains, if this will lead to significant improvements for them.