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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices

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To: Bill Jackson who wrote (44233)12/29/1998 4:58:00 PM
From: Tenchusatsu  Read Replies (1) of 1573010
 
<The jumps from .25 to .18 and then to .11 that are in the game plans of various companies?. Who dictates these jumps? the stepper makers?, some physical limit that was reached at .25, then advances made it .18 and then .11?, or is it the timetable and sizetable of the makers of the capital equipment that all are forced to dance to as they have to make the equipment and get it running 100% and there is an industry consensus to those sizes to have a standard?. A committee?>

There is no "consensus" on a given process technology; it just so happens that all of the leaders in the semiconductor industry are pretty close in the race toward smaller and smaller features. There's way too many things which dictates these jumps. Some of the capital equipment used for manufacturing come from common sources, which explains why it seems everyone more or less "agrees" on a feature size like 0.18 or 0.13 micron.

The sizes themselves are no coincidence. The figures (0.25, 0.18, 0.13 microns) represent lengths. If you notice, the factor is between 1.3 and 1.4 between each process. A factor of 1.4 in length translates roughly to a factor of 2 in area. In other words, going from 0.25 to 0.18 micron will cut your surface area in half, as will going from 0.18 to 0.13.

Tenchusatsu
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