lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) (08/24/90)
In article <224@csinc.UUCP> rpeglar@csinc.UUCP (Rob Peglar) writes: >It is >valid to note that as time goes by (and DRAM becomes denser), the cost of >starting up - capital expense - goes up in both real(constant) and today's >dollars. This is not trivial; in fact, it is the major reason why US >"players" in the semiconductor industry are reluctant to begin projects. I may be an optimist, but I see some hope for this. The cost of developing a major fab may never come down. Yes, anyone planning to build N million chips per quarter has to think in terms of hundreds of millions of dollars. When one hears of IBM breaking ground for a building-sized synchrotron, one easily extrapolates this. Aha: in the year 20xx, IBM will take over the Superconducting Supercollider, and have a Texas- sized fab (-: But that's not necessarily the whole future. There's real hope for minifabs, an order of magnitude cheaper than the big ones. The intention is to trade away throughput, but not quality. Partly, this is inspired by new technology that's still improving: laser-based X-ray steppers, ion beams, direct-write lasers. Partly, it's inspired by the industrial trend to modular multifunction and multichamber equipment. The new-technology units offer the wins of being compact, or multipurpose, or mask-less, or all three. The industrial trend (which could accelerate) has the win that a wafer doesn't emerge until it has been through multiple processing steps. Fewer units also means a smaller clean room, and there's a longer- term hope for no clean room at all. -- Don D.C.Lindsay