Despite concerns, copper-processing investments remain hot, says analyst
By Jack Robertson
EBN
(07/26/01 08:34 a.m. EST)
SAN FRANCISCO -- Aggressive ramping of copper interconnect processes in wafer fabs has been one of the few bright spots in the severe downturn of semiconductor equipment sales, according to an analysts presenting an industry outlook at the Robertson Stephens Inc. Semiconductor Conference here.
Robertson Stephens analyst Sue Billat said she has never seen a new semiconductor material take off as quickly as copper inside wafer fabs. During a presentation at the conference on Wednesday, she cited the embrace of copper by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., the world's largest chip foundry company.
"In another year all TSMC fabs will be 100% copper," she told the meeting.
"Manufacturers are using the current downturn as a time to bring up their copper processes," Billat added. "Rather than build any new capacity, they are converting existing fabs to copper."
The slump is also causing an acceleration of upgrades inside plant to the next-generation technology nodes, despite the worst downturn ever for IC houses, said the Robertson Stephens semiconductor equipment analyst.
"Between 80-to-95% of all equipment bookings in this quarter are for 'technology buys.' It is the highest level of technology buys that the industry has ever seen," she stressed. Billat's comments come after some executives expressed concerns that lower profits at chip makers would begin to slow new technology investments and 300-mm fabs (see July 16 story).
Installations of chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) tools and processes continue to grow in the downturn -- especially because the number of chip layers to be polished are increasing with each new generation node. She said a quarter-micron IC had 10 layers to be polished. At the 0.18-micron node, 15 layers needed to be polished between process steps and 20-to-23 layers are now being used in 0.13-micron process technologies, Billat noted.
Although Robertson Stephens doesn't track Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL), Billat said she believed the Japanese equipment giant was taking CMP market share away from Applied Materials Inc. and Lam Research Corp.
One piece of bad news in the technology push was the high cost of photomasks for new generation chips. Billat estimated the cost of a 0.13-micron node photomask set is double the 0.18-micron generation mask.
"Many chip companies have designs completed for 0.13-micron generation devices. They are holding back the tapes during this down cycle because they don't want to go into production with the high cost of photomasks," she cautioned..
Separately, Billat said she believes that when new 300-mm wafer fabs start production, "they won't initially add too much capacity." She said, "Every new fab ramps up incrementally before reaching full production. The 300-mm fabs will be no exception. At the very beginning, they won't double die production over 200-mm fabs." |
