INDUSTRY NEWS

300-MM Imperative

TSMC breaks 12-in. barrier. . .

Perhaps the semiconductor industry's first volume-production 300-mm fab will be built in Taiwan. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and DRAM manufacturer Vanguard International Semiconductor will spend between $1.18 billion and $2.12 billion in a joint venture to build the plant in the science park near Hsinchu. The partners tentatively will break ground in spring 2000. Volume production of chips with 0.13-um linewidths is scheduled to begin in 2002.

TSMC owns a 26% stake in Vanguard, but the partners will reportedly share equal access to the output of the new facility. Vanguard already operates an 8-in. fab in Hsinchu, and the new fab will be built on the site of the chipmaker's second 8-in. plant. Motorola and Infineon Technologies have been operating a 300-mm pilot line in Dresden, Germany, but the TSMC-Vanguard plant will be the first plant to process 12-in. wafers in volume.

Since last year, TSMC has indicated it intended to push ahead with 12-in. wafer processing, points out Chuck Byers, director of communications. Whether the company's "somewhat loose" groundbreaking timetable would put TSMC on track to be the first manufacturer to process 300-mm wafers in volume obviously depends on which other chipmaker, if any, gets there first. "It's not so much a technological issue, it's a matter of cost and demand," Byers notes of the scheduled groundbreaking.

Asked whether it would be accurate to state that TSMC will be the first to break the 12-in. barrier, he replies: "We honestly can't say that's inaccurate because we have been putting a stake in the ground, if you will, on 300-mm production since this time last year" in meetings with analysts. The 2002 target date "is kind of an old standard line now. We haven't hidden it. We've talked about it openly."

. . . or is it Intel?

The slow-motion race to build the first full-fledged 300-mm fab has sped up with the announcement that Intel has decided to put its delayed 300-mm wafer development program back on track. The giant microprocessor producer said on June 9 that it intended to start 300-mm production on a 0.13-µm process with copper metallization in 2002. Intel will use the technology to make future versions of its Pentium III, Pentium III Xeon, and Intel Celeron microprocessors.

Intel's date follows TSMC's earlier decision to begin construction next year on a volume-production fab in Hsinchu, Taiwan. The giant foundry said it too would begin production in 2002.

Intel will develop its 300-mm process technology at the chipmaker's D1C fab in Hillsboro, OR. The manufacturer will begin installing equipment early in 2000, and all the tools will be designed specifically for the new wafer generation. Intel had announced the 300-mm program in 1998 but halted it a few months later. The D1C project will cost Intel approximately $1.2 billion to build and equip. The fab's cleanroom will measure approximately 120,000 sq ft.

"The road to the Internet is paved with silicon," declared Craig Barrett, president and CEO. "The 300-mm wafers will help us get there more cost effectively, and Intel believes it is the time for the industry to move to a new, larger wafer generation."

Sematech likes GW test tools

International Sematech's 300-mm R&D group will use automated script-driven tools for factory integration testing from GW Associates, the consortium announced. Designed to minimize integration time, the testing system verifies compliance with the SEMI standard carrier management specific equipment model (SEM), intrabay SEM, interbay SEM, and stocker SEM requirements. The standards will be used in 300-mm fabs around the world, according to GW Associates. The scripts and procedures will be published on the I300I Web site "to facilitate development of standardized commercialized industry tests," says Karl Gartland, International Sematech's CIM project manager. GW Associates' FITT300 system is a test tool for the SEMI E23.1 carrier handoff enhanced parallel link used in 300-mm fabs. Information: http:// www. sematech.org/public/division/ 300/mission.htm.

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