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To: capt rocky who wrote (22264)	6/9/1999 4:45:00 PM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

intel taking huge step to reduce costs.. Intel gives green light to 300-mm wafer line By Rick Merritt EE Times (06/09/99, 12:49 p.m. EDT) HILLSBORO, Ore. — Intel Corp. will start outfitting a development fab early next year for making 300-mm (12-inch) wafers using a 0.13-micron process technology with copper interconnects. The plans involve a fab which Intel had put on hold in Hillsboro, Ore., and come as the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) is optimistically projecting that the chip industry is coming out of its three-year slump and is headed for what could be a three-year upturn. Intel will finish building the 120,000-square-foot clean room facility here this year and will begin buying equipment for it early in 2000. Ultimately the development facility will be turned into a full production fab, with volume production of 300-mm wafers expected in 2002. In parallel, Intel will bring up a 200-mm production line for the 0.13-micron copper process. The 200-mm line is expected to hit volume production in 2001. Intel will spend about $1.2 billion on the Hillsboro fab over the next two years, with about two-thirds of the spending going for capital equipment. Equipment suppliers have been battered by the expense of ramping 300-mm production gear, which has sat unused through last year's industry downturn, with the exception of a development facility in Dresden, Germany, jointly run by Motorola and Siemens. "We think the industry has gone as far as it can go without a company tasking a lead role in implementing this equipment in a way that it can move into full manufacturing," said a spokesman for Intel (Santa Clara, Calif.). "We didn't want the industry effort on 300 mm to stagnate, and if the latest SIA forecast is right, we will need the capacity that this will bring to bear." Previously , it was believed Intel would not take the lead in implementing 300-mm production, as a move to larger wafers often carries significant cost penalties for the early players, which face the stiffest learning curve. Intel led the industry in developing 6-inch wafers; IBM took the lead in the 8-inch generation. Prior to today's announcement, Intel had suggested it would not be first to implement the 12-inch generation. "A lot of the costs for 300-mm wafers have been removed with efforts by various consortia such as Sematech," the Intel spokesman said. "I won't claim we will be the first to make 300-mm wafers, but I think we will be the first to bring 300-mm wafers to the scale of manufacturing the industry needs to move forward. We don't want the industry to stall and not implement 300 mm." Intel completed an outer shell for the D1C developmental fab in Hillsboro about a year ago, but put further construction work on hold until recently. The company is currently ramping its 0.18-micron process at another facility, and expects all of its processors — potentially 100 million chips — could be made in that process a year from now.