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Low-cost chips coming to a fab near you
Intel, Samsung and TSMC have today agreed on a scheme to move the chip industry to using 450mm wafers in 2012. The industry has been producing chips on LP-sized 300mm wafers since 2001, but Intel reckons that it can get more than twice as many CPU dies onto a single 450mm wafer as a 300mm one.
The new wafers, combined with ever-shrinking die sizes, will allow chip companies to produce their chips at a cheaper cost, and also produce more of them more quickly. Despite their competitive differences, Intel, Samsung and TSMC (a third party chip fabrication company that produces chips for VIA and Nvidia, among others) are all agreed that an industry-wide collaboration is needed to standardise the shift to 450mm wafers.
Intel says that the ‘cooperative approach will help minimise risk and transition costs’ and ‘substantially reduce 450mm research and development costs by applying aligned standards, rationalising changes from 300mm infrastructure and automation, and working toward a common timeline .’
The industry generally moves to a new size of wafer every ten years, and the last two transition to 300mm wafers in 2001 came ten years after 200mm wafers were introduced in 1991.
In case you don’t know your wafers from your crackers, a wafer in chip terms is a large disc that’s packed full of chip dies. Generally, as you put more chips on a wafer, the production cost decreases, which often results in cheaper CPUs and graphics cards.
sorry for crappy english - silly pub :(
To start with, a 300m fab plant (a plant that fabricates CPUs from 300m single crystal discs of Silicon) needs a single crystal of silicon, of a 300mm diameter, to etch the cpu patterns into. In order to grow the single crystals (space group = Fd-3m, a = 7.12) they bung a small crystal into a moltern pot of silicon. The then pull this crystal out very very slowly (slow cooling) whilst rotating the crystal. They have to rotate it on order to maintain a uniform crystal growth (and thereby maintain a single crystal to the required dimension) they have to rotate the crystal as it solidifies. Which is why they work on a circle, and not a square / rectangle. As an asside a single crystal would be like a house brick, where as a normal crystal would be like a house (made up of many bricks). If you are careful, and clever, you can make your house brick as large as you like, and because it has no brick to brick joins its purity is both higher and more uniform. It may be that stuff like IR melt furnaces will allow clever folks to grow SiO2 single crystals in different geometries, but processes like that would dramatically increase the cost of the wafer, which would more than offset the increased yeild from each wafer, and void the object of delivering cheaper products to the consumer.
To start with, a 300m fab plant (a plant that fabricates CPUs from 300m single crystal discs of Silicon) needs a single crystal of silicon, of a 300mm diameter, to etch the cpu patterns into. In order to grow the single crystals (space group = Fd-3m, a = 7.12) they bung a small crystal into a moltern pot of silicon. The then pull this crystal out very very slowly (slow cooling) whilst rotating the crystal. They have to rotate it on order to maintain a uniform crystal growth (and thereby maintain a single crystal to the required dimension) they have to rotate the crystal as it solidifies. Which is why they work on a circle, and not a square / rectangle. As an asside a single crystal would be like a house brick, where as a normal crystal would be like a house (made up of many bricks). If you are careful, and clever, you can make your house brick as large as you like, and because it has no brick to brick joins its purity is both higher and more uniform. It may be that stuff like IR melt furnaces will allow clever folks to grow SiO2 single crystals in different geometries, but processes like that would dramatically increase the cost of the wafer, which would more than offset the increased yeild from each wafer, and void the object of delivering cheaper products to the consumer.
This change in wafer size to 450mm actually represents an increase in surface area of X 2.25 over a 300mm wafer. The formula for area of a circle is Pi x R², not 2x Pi x D as stated by "yougotkicked". A 300mm wafer diffused with a processor core of say 118mm² could yield say 500 full or partial core parts, whereas a 450mm wafer could yield say 1100 full or partial cores. Obviously a unit process advantage if the time to process each wafer remains the same. given that each wafer requires over 50 stages of image masking/ exposure/ infusion/ etching etc, the time saving per core produced is more than significant.
This change in wafer size to 450mm actually represents an increase in surface area of X 2.25 over a 300mm wafer. The formula for area of a circle is Pi x R², not 2x Pi x D as stated by "yougotkicked". A 300mm wafer diffused with a processor core of say 118mm² could yield say 500 full or partial core parts, whereas a 450mm wafer could yield say 1100 full or partial cores. Obviously a unit process advantage if the time to process each wafer remains the same. given that each wafer requires over 50 stages of image masking/ exposure/ infusion/ etching etc, the time saving per core produced is more than significant.
wafers are circular...dies are sort of square-ish. Farmers arrange their fields into as square shape as possible to get the highest yield-per-field (what a term!)..so why can't die's be produced in the same way? and why only these three companies? Surely other manufacturers should be jumping on board this bandwagon as well. I don't doubt that, while more economical, the new wafers aren't going to be cheap themselves as they aren't mass-produced yet, or mass-used so initial unit cost for them might be a bit much, so again, the more companies that are involved in this move, the more the wafer's will be used throughout the industry and that means even cheaper chips...with no lard
This is a lot of money been set aside in order to do this, these companies are agreeing on even bigger competition between each other, but just playing a bit fair... lol
Capitalism can be cast aside for the common good. This is a beacon of hope in a dark room, when looking for the black cat that isn't there.
i would like to see this happen befor i buy the computer after my next one (still on a skt. 939 system atm, need to upgrade soon). and for all the people who are probably not understanding why a 50% increase in the wafer size will result in a 100% gain in production; remember it is a circular wafer, 300 X 3.14= 942, 450 X 3.14= 1413, not a 100% gain in surface area, but the decreased slope of the perimiter will allow more of the space to be used. and there is probably some other stuff going into the equation that i do not know about. not calling anyoone stupid here but i didn't get it at first glance either so i thought i would chime in real quick.
@technogiant's comment This move WILL save us money aswell as the companies involved. The ability to produce the chips cheaper enables them to sell them cheaper (due to supply and demand, they will be cheaper). SLI/Crossfire & Physx/Havoc are battles which MUST exist for companies to be competitive, ATI and NVidia are bound to invent their own systems as they are trying to defeat the competition - with good reason, a business is made to make money. @Anyone This is good news! It is good to see the big names pulling together, as with WiMax (correct me if i'm wrong) companies collaborating can only further technological possibilities. It'll be something along these lines that'll ultimately lower SSD's and the like. Cheers, James
unny that these large companies can come together and cooperate when it saves them money... shame they can't do the same to produce a better customer experience....so many battles, SLI/Crossfire, phsyx/havoc, blueray/HD dvd...the consumer doesn't know which way to turn....but so long as the mega companies know where they stand thats okay isn't it???
that cmpanies are finally working together to get cost down for the consumer rather than thinking about downig the compatition.
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