Sorry for the delay in response but my time here has become tertiary to other tasks. My sources are engineers in the business that are working on the 300mm expansion proposals and some of the A&E people that are doing some modifications. Without going into too much detail, there is a balancing act going on with many of the new fabs under construction.
Capacity analysis is being done to see how an impending 8" fab shell could be converted to 12" with minimal disruption to the overall timeline and what the end resultant capacity would be. Right now, the viability and availabilty of 300mm equipment is probably the only real question mark. I have been doing some capacity analysis with my own "most realistic" capacity model appliaction that suggest the increase in equipment footprint for 300mm tools is more than made up with the increase in surface area of the 300mm wafers and the capabilities of the new toolset.
As far as only 2 300mm fabs are concerned, we have more than that coming on line by year end, which figures into this number, just in the Pacific Rim. A back of the envelope guess would be 15-17 by year end 2001 with some of them partial conversions of 8" shells.
Just as a point of reference, MU still has the Lehi Utah shell that is ready to have equipment moved into it within months. Once MU makes a decision, that could go fast. The INTC Colorado Springs Fab is now up in the air as to how it will proceed, and Taiwan and Singapore could have 2-3 300mm fabs ready to turn on by end of next year. This does not even address the work being done by MOT or NEC.
As always, this is my take on the activity based on industry contacts at the mid to high manufacturing Engineering levels are are most certainly subject to the whims of high level corporate management at each company. Right now, the engineers are being put through the motions with all of the what-if scenarios, which do not amount to a hill of beans if corporate management is narrow sighted in their view of the "big picture".
Any shell that is close to completion is capable of doing 300mm within the next 18 months. From start to finish, you can fast track a new facility within 18-24 months from scratch.
This is just my take of the situation and one of the few times I am taking a more aggressive view of the sector. Normally, I am a bit more conservative. But then again, exercising freedom of speech and thought allows me the luxury of being aggressive in my views occasionally.<GGG>
Andrew |
