Thought for the month

"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen" Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. 1870 – 1924

Thursday, 16 August 2012

Towards 450-mm - just another 50% in diameter ...

Within the silicon IC industry momentum is building for the transition to 450-mm wafers from 300-mm wafers, although current thinking is that only the leading-edge chip companies will initially make the move with the first fabs generating products in 2017. The concern has always been the huge cumulative costs of the R&D required to develop a full suite of 450-mm IC production equipment and tools. Estimates of $15bn - £20bn have been made. Last month progress was made with the announcement that Intel and ASML have entered into agreements intended to accelerate the development of 450-mm wafer technology and extreme ultra-violet lithography. The investments including R&D and product developments will total approximately $4.1 billion. The objective is to shorten the schedule for deploying the lithography equipment supporting 450-mm technologies by as much as two years.

This month also saw KLA Tencor announce that their Surfscan wafer defect inspection tool is capable of handling and inspecting 450-mm wafers.

1 comment:

  1. Hi there. Nice blog. You have shared useful information. Keep up the good work! This blog is really interesting and gives good details.
    TEMPERATURE Controller
    Colony Counter Manufacturer India
    ON LINE PH
    Spectro Photo Meter Manufacturer India

    ReplyDelete