Developed in collaboration with CEA-Leti (one of the world's leading microelectronics research laboratories), Smart Cut™ technology can be compared to an “atomic scalpel”: it makes it possible to transfer a very thin layer of material from a substrate to another.

Thanks to it, it became possible to produce stacks of extremely thin (10 to 100 nm) and perfectly uniform single crystal layers of semiconductors, which could not be obtained with conventional microelectronics technologies.

By assembling thin layers on the same substrate, Smart Cut™ technology makes it possible to design microelectronic equipment combining performance and energy efficiency and thus contributes to reducing their environmental footprint.

By using and perfecting Smart Cut™ technology, we have industrialized the production of silicon-on-insulator (SOI), a material used by our customers to manufacture higher-performance, more energy-efficient electronic components. We have also extended the use of Smart Cut™ technology to materials other than silicon, developed other layer transfer processes (Smart Stacking) and developed other expertise (epitaxy).

Today, we are the world leader in specialized substrates such as silicon on insulator (SOI), piezoelectric on insulator (POI), silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN). Having become a world leader in the production of SOI, specialized substrates and industrial thin layer transfer technologies, we invest on average 10% of our annual turnover in R&D and have a portfolio of more than 4,000 patents.