To thread,
More on 256Mb DRAM and 200mm vs 300mm. Unfortunately, no completion dates were provided for the new fabs.
Ian.
NEC reportedly plans 300-mm fabs
TOKYO--Industry reports are rampant here again that NEC Corp. plans to build new 300-mm wafer fabs both in Japan and at Roseville, Calif., to eventually make 256-Mbit DRAMs among other possible ICs.
NEC has long declined to comment on previous reports about the fab expansions, saying it would make an announcement only when plans had been completed.
In an interview last fall, NEC's senior executive vice president, Hajime Sasaki, said the company had additional land available at Roseville for building a new fab whenever the firm believed the timing was right. He said NEC was planning a next generation 300-mm wafer fab in Japan, but at the time last year the firm was delaying any commitment until production equipment for the larger size wafer became available.
When NEC jumps into the 300-mm fab race it will join a host of rivals who have announced pilot lines for the new size wafer with plans to eventually expand into production. This includes Siemens, Motorola, Intel, ST Microelectronics, IBM, Texas Instruments and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC).
While NEC is expected to target any new 300-mm fabs to produce 256-Mbit DRAMs, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Corp. said its 256-Mbit chips will be made on 200-mm wafers. It wasn't clear if NEC also was considering first making 256-Mbit chips on 200-mm wafers and then switching to the larger 12-inch wafers. |
