Olivier Faynot came to Grenoble for his postgraduate studies, before pursuing a PhD, and joined CEA-Leti in 1995. His key contribution to science? Participating in the emergence of SOI and FD-SOI, two technologies that have progressed from labs to industrial applications in just a few decades.
“Their performance needed to be demonstrated, they had to be developed and accepted compared to solutions that were older, but tried-and-tested."
2010: SOI gets a foothold as an alternative to bulk CMOS
He has worked relentlessly to do so, working in turn with simulation, modeling, design, and industrial transfer, including at STMicroelectronics, where he spent 18 months. Interested in working internationally, he was assigned to the US, where he joined IBM laboratories from 2013 to 2016, focusing on nanowires and FD-SOI. He also ran several CEA-Leti branches before being appointed to a division with 400 employees.
An example of his contribution to the discipline: in 2010, Olivier Faynot paved the way to industrializing SOI when he demonstrated the low variability of 28nm SOI transistors with his team.
'Our critics were questioning the quality and cost of SOI substrates… We addressed all their concerns, breaking the domination of 28nm solid silicon in fabs.'
Author of more than 300 articles
Today, SOI can be found in nearly every smartphone on the planet. As for FD-SOI, it is in Google phones, Bosch car radars, Sony GPS systems… Better yet: Samsung and GlobalFoundries are considering it as an alternative to CMOS bulk for forthcoming generations of advanced circuits.
Olivier Faynot is the author or co-author of more than 300 scientific articles, the recipient of several awards, and a member of committees from all the major international conferences on semiconductors. Despite so many achievements, he has remained humble: 'I was appointed IEEE Fellow on an individual basis. But without my teams, without CEA-Leti and the CEA to support me, I would not have achieved much. This distinction is also theirs.'
His next goal?
'Improving the energy efficiency of our integrated systems by a factor of 1,000. It will be a prerequisite for future electronics.'