Thanks Dave and Winston.................
Regarding semi production costs, there is a roughly fixed cost to produce a wafer, no matter how many chips are on the wafer. If you reduce the size of a chip, either through re-designed circuitry/smaller software ROM, or through smaller feature sizes, such as .35 micron, then you get a double benefit from the smaller chips.
First, you get the lower cost/chip, because you have more chips on the wafer at a fixed cost/wafer.
Second, you get a higher yield -- a higher percentage of chips which actually work. This is because defective chips are usually due to dust or other process defects which occur at a fixed number per wafer. For example, if you average a fixed number of defects per wafer, and you pack twice as many chips on a wafer, the yield roughly doubles. |
