The ever increasing popularity and acceptance in the market place of portable systems, such as cell phones, PDA, notebook PC, etc., are fueling effects in further miniaturizing and lowering power consumption in these systems. The dynamic power consumption due to the CPU activities and the static power consumption due to leakage currents are two major sources of power consumption. Smaller devices and a lower de voltage lead to reducing the power requirement, while better insulation and isolation of devices lead to reducing leakage currents. All these can be harnessed in the SOI (silicon-on-insulator) technology. In this study, the key aspects of the SOI technology, mainly device electrical properties and device processing steps, are briefly reviewed. The interesting materials issues, such as SOI structure formation and SOI wafer fabrication methods, are then surveyed. In particular, the recent technological innovations in two major SOI wafer fabrication methods, namely wafer bonding and SIMOX, are explored and compared in depth. The results of the study are nixed in that, although the quality of the SOI structures has shown great improvements, the processing steps are still found to be too complex. Between the two methods, no clear winner has yet emerged in terms of the product quality and cost considerations.