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Semiconductors to be even cheaper by 2012

by Scott Bicheno on 6 May 2008, 10:20

Tags: Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)

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The three amigos

Three of the world’s biggest semiconductor manufacturers have announced that they “have reached agreement on the need for industry-wide collaboration to target a transition to larger, 450mm-sized wafers starting in 2012.”

Intel, Samsung and TSMC’s rather nuanced announcement should mean that the cost of production of semiconductor-based products will drop and thus so will street prices. However, the way the announcement is phrased seems to leave room for manoeuvre should any of them not fancy it in future.

A 450mm wafer should yield more than twice the number of printed die (e.g. CPUs), which would lower cost as well as making the whole process less resource-intensive and thus greener.

None of this can happen without industry consensus, hence the need for this statement of intentions. “The companies will cooperate with the semiconductor industry to help ensure that all of the required components, infrastructure and capability are developed and tested for a pilot line by this target date,” said the press release.

“There is a long history of innovation and problem solving in our industry that has delivered wafer transitions resulting in lower costs per area of silicon processed and overall industry growth,” said Bob Bruck, VP and GM of technology manufacturing engineering at Intel.

 



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