Since just about everything at Intel was already .18 at the time, and since we know about the problems Intel has been having with 198nm stepper suppliers, those two steppers were probably 248nm steppers that were suitable for reasonable throughput using phase shift to get .13 features out of 248nm steppers.
---Intel did not need 193nm steppers for 0.18u, the famous (infamous) Notched Poly is what I read was was actually used. While using the 248nm steppers probably needed tight Poly Layer Control, I Don't Think there would be a need for Phase Shifting to achieve 0.18u Standard Gate Widths.
---By the way, thanks for noting that it was the Stepper Manufacturers that had the 193nm problems..... Not Intel.
Two years ago, Intel was the company that was going to go straight to 193nm steppers, while AMD thought it could do what it needed to with phase shift on 248nm steppers. As it has turned out, it's AMD that couldn't do .13 without 193nm steppers, while Intel is using phase shift for its first generation .13 - and that appears to include parts of the ".18" P4. Making that rest of the chips using .13 "node" features will probably speed it up some, but since the critical parts of the chip appear to have been ".13" from the get-go, it may not help very much.
---Ha Ha Ha..... Pure B.S. (almost). I suspect that you got the 0.13u Phase Sifting part of it right, but your WAY off in left field with that Fantasy about 0.18u having 0.13u technology..... 2 Completely Different Processes....
The actual argument (speculation) that I heard, was that it was AMD that has been using 0.13u "techniques" on their Poly Layer, to achieve 0.13u Gate Widths on their 0.18u Process. Could it be that AMD has been "Phase Shifting" for quite some time??
:-)
Semi |
