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Joint Effort Comes up to Develop 450mm Wafer Tech
By
ChannelTimes Staff
Mumbai, May 6, 2008
Intel Corporation, Samsung Electronics and TSMC have agreed on the need for industry-wide collaboration - to target a transition to larger, 450mm-sized wafers starting in 2012.
It may be contextually noted that the transition to larger wafers will enable continued growth of the semiconductor industry, and help in maintaining a reasonable cost structure for future integrated circuit manufacturing and applications.
According to the agreement, the companies will cooperate with the semiconductor industry to help ensure that all of the required components, infrastructure and capability are developed and tested for a pilot line within that target date.
Manufacturing with larger wafers helps increasing the ability to produce semiconductors at a lower cost. If the total silicon surface area is taken as 450mm, the number of printed die (individual computer chips, for example) is more than twice that of a 300mm wafer. Evidently, the bigger wafers help lower the production cost per chip.
Moreover, through more efficient use of energy, wafer and other resources, bigger wafers can help diminish overall use of resources per chip. It may be recalled that the conversion from 200mm wafers to 300mm wafers helped in reducing aggregate emissions per chip of air pollution, global warming gases and water, now further reduction is expected with a transition to 450mm wafers.
Bob Bruck, vice president and general manager, Technology Manufacturing Engineering in Intel's Technology and Manufacturing Group, explained, "There is a long history of innovation and problem solving in our industry that has delivered wafer transitions, resulting in lower costs per area of silicon processed and overall industry growth. We, along with Samsung and TSMC, agree that the transition to 450mm wafers will follow the same pattern of delivering increased value to our customers."
"The transition to 450mm wafers will benefit the entire ecosystem of the IC industry, and Intel, Samsung, TSMC will work together with suppliers and other semiconductor manufacturers to actively develop 450mm capability," informed Cheong-Woo Byun, senior vice president, Memory Manufacturing Operation Center, Samsung Electronics.
In the words of Mark Liu, senior vice president - Advanced Technology Business of TSMC, "Increasing cost due to the complexity of advanced technology is a concern for the future. Intel, Samsung, and TSMC believe the transition to 450mm wafers is a potential solution - to maintain a reasonable cost structure for the industry."
The 3 companies will continue to work with International Sematech (ISMI), as it plays a critical role in coordinating industry efforts on 450mm wafer supply, standards setting and developing equipment test bed capabilities.
Related Link
Intel to Bring out Low-cost Pocketable Devices
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