Chip makers preparing road to 450mm wafers

Thirteen semiconductor makers will meet behind closed doors today to discuss the roadmap to 450mm wafers. This includes AMD, HP, IBM, Infineon, Matsushita, Philips, TSMC and Texas Instruments.

"The move from 200- to 300-mm wafers was a revolutionary transformation, creating the first fully automated fabs,” said Scott Kramer, director of ISMI in an interview with EE Times. "It required a very high R&D investment to make that happen.

"The objective for the next generation is to make it more evolutionary,” Kramer added. “Three hundred millimeter was quite an abrupt change with many new standards. If we repeat that, we will have failed,” he added.

More details at EE Times.