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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Shane Geary who wrote (89087)	1/23/2000 5:09:00 PM
From: Process Boy	Respond to of 1572369

Shane - <So the cost advantage is due to the performance of the Cu tools, not the cost of them or of the Cu process per se? Interesting.> Yes!!! At .18! Intel would have had to have massive equipment outlay to get several fabs going on Cu. Do you think that two years ago that any one Cu Polish vendor could handled getting Intel's .18 fabs Cu ready? Never mind process maturity issues. <Personally, I can see that Intel will gain a cost advantage relative to their OWN costs of introducing a Cu process - because of the amount of equipment re-use possible. It may then make a lot of financial sense for Intel to remain with Al in their current fabs for the 0.18um process. Intel have trumpeted the amount of equipment re-use they have as a significant contributor to cost reduction,> Yes. But the proces itself (# of process steps) is also very inexpensive. But I can't give you a figure. <AMD did the same in fab25 for the 0.18um process, remember.> Yes I do, and I wondered why they just didn't stay with .18 for Al and go to .13 for Cu. Jsut different philosophies. Every process guru I talked to about AMD's dual .18, even when I was delivering the news, always had the same first reaction; EXPENSIVE! Intel is very cost vs. performance focused. <However, when kitting out a NEW fab, the financial implications must be very different. You don't want to introduce equipment that you will then have to get rid of one process generation (2 years) later. It is possible that AMDs Cu tools will be utilised in subsequent generations. > Undoubtably, for some of it. Some of it not, however. Steppers? Maybe. Cu Polish? Maybe. Etchers? Maybe not. Intel is just putting it all in place for .13. .18 is not a very long lived process generation vs. historical, IMHO. <However, when kitting out a NEW fab, the financial implications must be very different. You don't want to introduce equipment that you will then have to get rid of one process generation (2 years) later. It is possible that AMDs Cu tools will be utilised in subsequent generations. > I personaly don't have a problem with AMD going to Cu, if you read all my posts. It's just not the way I would have done it. No biggei. My argument this ime is more cncerned with defending Intel's stance on Cu. <Also, in theory at least, a dual damascene copper process has fewer steps the traditional Al + W dep/etch backend processes, ultimately allowing better defect density (reported by IBM) and lower wafer costs.> Yes it will eventually. But the development cost to an outfit the size of Intel are quiate high. Also, the main point of intel's argument is that .18 works for them, why spend the money to put a bunch of new, immature, expensive equipment in for .18, when Al works just fine, aand as you pointed out, 70% of the equipment was already in place form the .25 generation? <I agree with you that much greater MHz benefit from Cu will be seen at 0.13um and below.> Yes. Again Shane. Think about the maturity of Cu vw. trying to implement it at .18. Intel would have been the Cu leader then, instead of IBM MOT. It didn't make sense to try and implement Cu on that scale when any performance benefits are dubious at best. Don't really care if AMD goes to Cu at .18. If it makes sense for them, fine. With one fab vs. several, it's a totally different ballgame. PB