Clark,
RE:Significantly more than 50% of factory capacity is currently
at greater than 0.25u and doesn't use DUV. Additionally, this ignores the fact that as devices shrink further, more and more layers on each chip (even those already at less than 0.25u) will require DUV as some of the non-critical layers move from >0.25 to <0.25.
The world's largest DRAM company, Samsung, is estimated to have 25% of its capacity at the 0.25µm level. This is not taking into consideration layers at sub-0.25, for which the number will increase as we move 256Mb, 1Gb, etc.
Besides reducing debt, selling off operations can give Korean chip firms a cash infusion needed to modernize DRAM operations, said Dan Hutcheson, president of VLSI Research. "They've got to invest in state-of-the-art production capacity," he said, estimating that Samsung has converted only about 25 percent of its capacity to quarter-micron.
sumnet.com
The world's future largest DRAM manufacturer, Micron, after TI fab upgrades, will be converting newly inherited fabs to 0.18/0.15.
Then you have the Hyundai/LG combination.
Hyundai currently has four 8-inch fabs in Korea that are being upgraded to
sub-quarter-micron processing, and an 8-inch 0.22-micron fab in Eugene,
Ore. LG Semicon operates five 8-inch fabs in South Korea, and has started
converting some of them to sub-quarter micron processing.
Both companies have unfinished superfabs on hold in the U.K. Hyundai is
building one in Scotland and LG Semicon has one in Wales. It was unclear
whether construction on either of these plants would resume after the merger.
semibiznews.com
That's not including the other world's 20 largest semiconductor companies.
Bob |
