ECSEL JU Project OCEAN12

For the last years, electronic components become more and more widespread in the automotive industry. Today they create a superior value for the final customer and represent an important vector of differentiation in the industry. The sharing economy model, which drives innovation strategies in Smart mobility, will further increase the need for safe, cost efficient, secure, reliable and unhackable operations. This will enlarge costs of electronics and software in the total cost of a vehicle.

OCEAN12 will bring very concrete technological solutions and corresponding demonstrators for this problem. Based on the innovative Fully Depleted Silicon On Insulator (FD-SOI) technology, the project will develop new processors and applications design, which will leverage FD-SOI to offer the industry’s lowest power consuming processor and components, mainly for automotive and aeronautic applications.

The OCEAN12’s team will also develop a technology platform benefitting from FDSOI design’s extreme low leakage and operating voltage (Vdd) scalability attained thanks to reverse and forward body biasing (RBB/FBB) of the integrate circuit and its power system architecture. This high performance, low power solution will enable the next strategic generations of smart vehicles. This platform will rely on:
a pilot line facility capable to manufacture advanced substrates compatible with 12FDX technology,
the definition of path finding solutions to push 12FDX technology performances and substrates solutions for innovative sensors,
the development of innovative designs at the forefront of state of the art to enhance FDSOI capacity and guarantee the highest level of integrated solutions,
the manufacturing of high performance ICs using all palette of FDSOI technologies

The produced highly integrated, reliable, ultra-low power and lower cost components will be integrated in complex embedded systems accessible to the automotive industry suppliers, as well as manufacturers, answering strategic challenges of future autonomous vehicles generations (land or air). Several product demonstrators are targeted: high end microcontroller plug and play board, high performance sensors data fusion, highly integrated low power video processing, awaking systems.

The project will highlight Europe’s unique leading position on FDSOI technology, integrating the entire manufacturing chain – from substrate suppliers and foundries to TIER-1 and OEM, involving academia and RTO’s. By doing so, it will secure a unique FDSOI roadmap beyond the 22FDX.