When it came to 450-mm, there were two industry sides. One believed that the cost escalation trend that came with 300-mm was inevitable and would break the industry at 450-mm. The other believed it was essential to keeping the industry on Moore’s Law. I fell on the middle divide, believing that a large part of what had been spent with 300-mm was wasted on false starts, unrealistic expectations, irrational exuberance and bad business models, to name a few.
Fortunately, there were plenty in the semiconductor industry that felt the same way and proceeded to move forward cautiously. First, they spent a lot of time analyzing what went wrong with 300-mm and then they planned around it. So here we are. It’s 2011, one year before the ITRS road map from back in the day predicted 450-mm would roll into production. Obviously that isn’t going to happen..
450mm the best bargain ever?
Posted on Sunday, February 13 2011 @ 0:36 CET by Thomas De MaesschalckEE Times has written an analysis about 450mm production, you can read it over here.
