| | Semico sees shortages of leading-edge foundry capacity
By Crista Souza, EBN
Silicon Strategies
10/01/2003, 9:40 PM ET
San Jose -- A shortage of leading edge foundry capacity will have chip suppliers scrambling for wafers in 2004, though a number of 300mm factories slated to open within the next year will produce a glut of chips and a one-year downturn in 2005, according to Semico Research Corp.
While escalating costs has fewer companies building new fabs, the expected output of each factory is significantly higher than in the past. One 300mm (12in.)-wafer fab can produce the equivalent of 600,000 8in. wafers per year.
"That means each fab has to be a lot more flexible, or go underutilized," said Semico analyst Joanne Itow.
Coupled with the price of mask sets at the next-generation 90nm node--estimated between $800,000 and $1.2 million--chipmakers are slow to invest in new fabs, or are partnering with foundries or other chipmakers to share the expense.
As a result, while foundry wafer demand is projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 23% between 2002 and 2007, total wafer demand will slow slightly to 10% over the forecast period, Itow said.
Foundry revenue, meanwhile, is forecast to grow from $15 billion in 2003 to approximately $22 billion in 2004, slowing to reach $25 billion in 2005.
New fab techniques are being employed to make fabs more flexible and help bring down the mask cost per wafer. These include shuttle services, multiproject wafers, and direct write, or maskless lithography. The latter is a good alternative for companies that only need a few wafers, said Semico analyst Dave Cavanaugh.
"Companies building low-volume ASICs will have to adopt some of these alternative technologies," he said.
However, the 'learning curve' for 90nm is expected to be long, which could put all but the most cutting-edge chip suppliers off adopting the technology for several years.
"I believe it will not be cost effective for low-volume, small-die products to switch to 90nm until at least 2007," said Itow. "Most companies won't choose to do it. But if you have large volume and need high performance, you will have to go to 90nm?" |
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