Lateral epitaxial overgrowth of silicon over recessed oxide

There has been considerable interest in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology recently because of its potential applications in VLSI. CMOS circuits in SOI have higher speed because of the absence of substrate capacitance, and freedom from latch-up because of dielectric isolation. Recently, memory circuits like DRAMs have reached the physical limits of what is possible in two dimensions, and hence there is a growing need for 3-dimensional circuits. SOI offers a possible avenue to realise such 3-D circuits and thus lead the way to the next generation of memories and integrated circuits.