In response to your questions, I can only relay to you what my understanding
is and by no means hold myself up as an industry insider or technician.
As far as GaA's, it is quite possible that GaA's will remain a niche player
in the semiconductor market indefinitely (I say this as a holder of ANAD,
believing that this niche has high growth prospects). SOI could become
a challenger to GaA's even in PCS phones, however, the market is expanding
so rapidly, I don't see it as a near term threat.
As far as 300mm wafers, yes, SOI could be one factor that would allow
a manufacturer to delay moving to larger wafers due to the option of
further decreasing line widths, thus allowing more chips per wafer to
be produced. Certainly, SOI alone would not prevent such a migration.
Right now I believe the cost of moving to 300mm is the greatest obstacle
along with the lack of 300mm wafers. From what I've been able to gather,
300mm will not be a significant factor until the turn of the century. |
