Semicon West 450-mm Panel Decries Uncertainty
By David Lammers
A Semicon West panel on the 450-mm wafer transition was far more positive than previous sessions over the past five years. However, equipment executives said they remain concerned that the timing of the transition and the targeted technology node will change, and change again, before 450-mm equipment starts shipping in volumes.
David Hemler, vice president of new product development at Lam Research, said he believes demand for equipment will continue to rise, with more pieces of equipment sold even as the 450-mm wafer generation takes hold. “That part of the economics I think is OK. The problem comes if there is a false start. If the device makers first say they want it for 14nm, then change to 7nm, that is double the investment. If we could know that 450 would come in at this date, at this node, we could do that. That risk of the unknown is the trouble,” Hemler said.
Hemler later added that such certainty is highly unlikely. “Even within TSMC, Samsung, and Intel, different people are talking about different scenarios.”
“We cannot afford a false start,” a participant said. “We have to make certain we know the design node – that is critical.”
Paola Gargini (Intel), Tom Sonderman (GlobalFoundries) and Bob Johnson (Gartner).
Intel technology strategy manager Paolo Gargini said equipment makers should “overshoot” as they develop the technology capabilities of their 450-mm tools, protecting themselves from possible delays. He said Wall Street now expects the 450-mm transition to occur in the 2016-2019 time frame, but added that trying to pin down the both the node and exact year of entry is asking for the impossible.
Gargini also said the need for leading-edge equipment for 300-mm wafer processing will continue “forever.” He said the idea that all the most capable equipment will move to 450-mm from 300-mm is false, and is “causing alarm bells to go off” by people working at mid-size companies in the IC industry.
“There has to be a method where the equipment makers can scale up the tools that they ship, with two tools (300-mm and 450-mm) with essentially the same capability. There has got to be coexistence,” Gargini said.
The three semiconductor companies backing the 450-mm transition – Intel, Samsung, and TSMC – held a meeting last year and identified some 60 tools that they all use in common. The remaining one-third of the most important tools differ from company to company, but by together asking for 450-mm models of the 60 tools used commonly the transition could be accelerated, Gargini said.
Tom Sonderman, vice president of manufacturing technology at GlobalFoundries, said companies are set to invest in EUV scanners, with GlobalFoundries planning to take possession of an ASML NXE:3300 EUV scanner next year. “The gating factor for 450-mm is lithography,” Sonderman said, prompting Gartner analyst Bob Johnson to ask, “When will ASML commit to 450?”
While EUV is an important piece of the 450-mm toolset, scanners expose in a die-to-die manner, regardless of the wafer size. Shifting to 450-mm scanners would require a different wafer stage, of course, but one source said ASML has designed its chambers to be extendable to the 450-mm wafer size. “Lithography won’t be the problem,” he argued.
Sonderman said “we need synchronized planning” to make the 450-mm transition successful.
“There clearly lots of things we can do to get more out of our 300-mm investments, while we are on the way to 450. Let’s not leave any productivity gains on the table. When you look at how much silicon sits in the fab, and how much we throw away, there is a lot we can do,” Sonderman said.
When 450-mm fabs are built, there almost certainly will be major changes to automation systems. “The number of wafers we move around certainly will not be 25 to a FOUP. They way we layout a factory, and the way we automate a factory, will change,” Sonderman said.
Tags: 450-mm wafers, GlobalFoundries, Intel, TSMC