Plans Target a Joint Comprehensive Industrial Solution for Wafer-Level
3D Integration

TOKYO, December 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Soitec Group (Euronext, Paris),
the world's leading supplier of engineered substrates for the microelectronics
industry, and CEA-Leti, a leading global research center committed to creating
and commercializing innovation in micro- and nanotechnologies, today announced
plans to expand their collaboration on wafer-to-wafer 3D integration by offering
customers a joint, comprehensive industrial solution. The global offer
envisioned by the long-term partners begins with process customization for
prototype demonstration and will include licensing, both in 200mm and 300mm.

3D-level integration allows stacking integrated circuits and connecting them
vertically. The technology enables increased performance, smaller form factors,
and reduced power consumption, while lowering the costs of next-generation
electronic devices. Potential markets and applications include image sensors,
logic on logic, memory on memory, sensors on logic, memory on logic and new
heterogeneous solutions such as MEMS on logic and photonics on logic.

Soitec's contribution to the partnership includes its Smart Stacking(TM)
technology, which enables wafer-to-wafer-level stacking of partially or fully
processed circuits; its low-temperature Smart Cut(TM) process; and the
copper-to-copper bonding technology already in development with CEA-Leti. This
offer also leverages Soitec's core expertise in wafer bonding and thinning
technologies as well as its unique industrial background in this field.

CEA-Leti, likewise, offers broad and deep 3D wafer-to-wafer technology and
expertise. These include all the necessary process steps for different 3D
approaches, such as connecting vias, and cost-effective technologies such as
wafer pre-processing, bonding, thinning and TSV etching and filling, and
post-processing wafer assembly.

"As the leaders in the building-block technologies that enable 3D integration at
the wafer-to-wafer level, Soitec and Leti are uniquely positioned to offer
customers a comprehensive solution," said Andre-Jacques Auberton-Herve, Soitec
president and CEO. "Leveraging Leti's 3D expertise and our well known bonding
industrial experience, we can offer customers prototyping solutions as well as
the processes they'll need for rapid ramp to full-scale production."

"We are proud to expand our partnership with Soitec and make the Grenoble Valley
a center for 3D technology. This partnership will leverage CEA-Leti's extensive
work in this area, including our 3D integration technology toolbox," said
Laurent Malier, CEO of CEA-Leti. "Given CEA-Leti and Soitec's successful history
of innovation, industrialization and collaboration, we expect our global offer
to significantly advance commercial adoption of 3D integration technologies."

About CEA-Leti:

CEA is a French Research and Technology Organization, with activities in three
main areas: Energy, Technologies for Information and Healthcare, and Defence and
Security. Within CEA, the Laboratory for Electronics & Information Technology
(CEA-Leti) works with companies in order to increase their competitiveness
through technological innovation and transfers. Leti is focused on micro and
nanotechnologies and their applications, from wireless devices and systems, to
biology and healthcare or photonics. Nanoelectronics and Microsystems (MEMS) are
at the core of its activities. As a major player in the MINATEC(R) excellence
center, Leti operates 8,000-m2 state-of-the-art clean rooms, on 24/7 mode, on
200mm and 300mm wafer standards. With 1,200 employees, Leti trains more than 150
Ph.D. students and hosts 200 assignees from partner companies. Strongly
committed to the creation of value for the industry, Leti puts a strong emphasis
on intellectual property and owns more than 1,400 patent families. In 2008,
contractual income covered more than 75 percent of its budget, which totalled
205 M EUR.

For more information, visit http://www.leti.fr

About the Soitec Group:

The Soitec Group is the world's leading innovator and provider of the engineered
substrate solutions that serve as the foundation for today's most advanced
microelectronic products. The group leverages its proprietary Smart Cut(TM)
technology to engineer new substrate solutions, such as silicon-on-insulator
(SOI) wafers, which became the first high-volume application for this
proprietary technology. Since then, SOI has emerged as the material platform of
the future, enabling the production of higher performing, faster chips that
consume less power.

Today, Soitec produces more than 80 percent of the world's SOI wafers.
Headquartered in Bernin, France, with two high-volume fabs on-site, Soitec has
offices throughout the United States, Japan and Taiwan, and a new production
site in the process of customers' qualification in Singapore.

Two other divisions, Picogiga International and Tracit Technologies, complete
the Soitec Group. Picogiga delivers advanced substrates solutions, including
III-V epiwafers and gallium nitride (GaN) wafers, to the compound material world
for the manufacture of high-frequency electronics and other optoelectronic
devices. Tracit, on the other hand, provides thin-film layer transfer
technologies used to manufacture advanced substrates for power ICs and
microsystems, as well as generic circuit transfer technology Smart Stacking(TM)
for applications such as image sensors and 3D-integration. Shares of the Soitec
Group are listed on Euronext Paris. For more information, visit
http://www.soitec.com.

Soitec, Smart Cut, Smart Stacking and UNIBOND are trademarks of S.O.I.TEC
Silicon On Insulator Technologies.

Press Contact: Camille Darnaud-Dufour (Mobile : +33(0)6-79-49-51-43)

Email: camille.darnaud-dufour@soitec.com

SOURCE Soitec