300-mm not only back on track, but it's moving ahead of schedule
Up to one-third of wafer fab gear could be for 12-inch lines in two-to-three years, say new forecasts; next downturn will slow movement, but not derail it
By J. Robert Lineback
Semiconductor Business News
(07/10/00, 08:52:52 AM EDT)
SAN FRANCISCO -- After nearly coming to a screeching halt two years ago, the 300-mm wafer generation has regained its lost momentum and then some.
Up to one-third of the chip industry's spending on new wafer fab gear could go to 300-mm processing lines in the next two or three years, according to new forecasts from analysts and enthusiastic tool suppliers, who are gathering here this week at the Semicon West 2000 trade show to stoke the fires of the current semiconductor equipment recovery.
But look out. Just around the corner--also two to three years from now--lurks the growing likelihood that the chip industry will face its next slowdown at exactly the time when 300-mm factories are ramping production into volume, say some analysts.
But don't worry, say confident capital equipment executives, who believe too much momentum is now behind the transition to larger 300-mm diameter wafers. Nearly no one sees the possibility that 300-mm could be knocked off its tracks again, like 1998.
"It is a foregone conclusion, but what we are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg," said Richard Hill, chairman and chief executive officer of Novellus Systems Inc. "What you are going to see is an acceleration in 2001 to 300-mm, particularly among the memory manufacturers and producers of large logic devices because they can get more die out [of a fab]. The maturity of equipment is coming around, and it is hot to go.
"We will have some fairly high-volume 300-mm fabs online by the end of the second quarter or the middle of the third quarter of 2001," added the CEO of the San Jose-based supplier of deposition tools.
For once, executives at Applied Materials Inc. agree with the top manager at rival Novellus. The world's largest supplier of semiconductor equipment expects to see strong growth in 300-mm tool shipments starting in the third quarter this year and continuing well into the middle of the decade.
"By the end of this year, we will be shipping about 150 tools or systems," said Dan Maydan, president of Applied Materials in Santa Clara, Calif. "We see most if not all of our leading customers committing to pilot and/or production lines. So we believe that in 2002--if there is no downturn between now and then--about 30% of our business will be coming from 300-mm."
Confident semiconductor manufacturers are accelerating plans to set up their initial 300-mm wafer processing lines to gain hands-on experience with the larger 12-inch substrates, tools and automation required to make $2.5-to-$3 billion fabs viable. With a string of 300-mm fab and pilot line announcements being made in the past five months, Dataquest Inc. has revised its outlook for 12-inch wafer-processing equipment spending to nearly $6 billion in 2001 from a previous forecast of $3.7 billion. In 2002, revenues for 300-mm wafer fab tools will exceed $10 billion, or about 24% of the total, and $11.8 billion in 2003, or 31% of processing equipment, said Klaus Rinnen, chief analyst tracking semiconductor production systems at Dataquest.
The San Jose-based market research firm has raised its count of expected 300-mm production fabs to five in 2001 vs. a previous forecast of two. In 2002, the industry will add another 11 twelve-inch production fabs, based on the recent series of plant announcements, Rinnen said. At the start of this year, Dataquest had estimated that only three 300-mm production facilities would be started up in 2002. Many more pilot facilities are also in the works.
"At the beginning of the year, we said this current upswing [in capital spending] will be driven by 200-mm fabs, and we are more or less holding to that," Rinnen said. "It's clear that with more money available for investments, companies are getting more aggressive with 300-mm because the learning must be done and the technology is going to be needed in the near future."
But Dataquest and other market researchers believe the accelerating 300-mm movement will hit a speed bump in the next downturn--which in recently released forecasts has pulled up that timeframe to 2002 vs. 2003 as was expected earlier this year because of heavy capital spending plans by semiconductor manufacturers (see July 6 story). Dataquest, for example, now sees wafer fab equipment spending increasing nearly 70% to $34.6 billion in 2000 from just $17.96 billion in 1999.
"The 300-mm generation will not be immune to the downturn," Rinnen cautioned. "The proliferation will slow down. The momentum will slow for a year or two and then it will pick up again." Dataquest is estimating that 300-mm equipment sales will grow by only 16% in 2003 after increasing 73% in 2002 and 157% in 2001. When the chip industry enters its next recovery cycle, 300-mm fabs will become the driving force, he added.
But there is still a lot of learning to be done in these boom times and major chip makers are pushing hard to get that under their belts as quickly as possible. Leading the charge into 300-mm production has been the Semiconductor 300 joint venture between Infineon Technologies AG and Motorola Inc. in Dresden, Germany. After reaching acceptable 64- and 256-megabit DRAM yields on 12-inch wafers, Infineon announced three months ago it would invest $1 billion to set up a high-volume 300-mm production facility in Dresden. Motorola is still considering its options for a 300-mm plant, and is looking for a production partner.
A wave of other companies are also pushing forward to start 300-mm wafers rolling through pilot lines. Intel Corp. has equipped its development facility in Hillsboro, Ore., and it has announced plans to set up 300-mm production lines in New Mexico, Arizona, and Ireland between now and the middle of the decade. The first could go online in a couple of years.
A growing field of those pursuing early production of 300-mm wafers include the likes of Samsung, Texas Instruments, NEC, IBM, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., and a joint venture between Hitachi and United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC). Most fab equipment executives place the number of firm 300-mm pilot lines and early production facilities now at 10 or more plants.
Up until now, most of the experience with 300-mm tools has been at the equipment vendors and inside industry consortia, such as International Sematech and Japan's Selete(Semiconductor Leading Edge Technology Inc.). Unlike the previous 200-mm (8-inch) transition from 150-mm (6-inch) wafers, equipment suppliers are handling a great deal of the process development, which has accelerated the maturity of the 300-mm production technologies and platforms, but it has also left the final integration tasks up to the device manufacturers, who are just now starting to get hands-on experience.
While many fab managers are optimistic, they also remain cautious about the initial performance of tool sets, processes, and--especially--the market dynamics. In Taiwan, foundry giant TSMC is preparing to accept its first 300-mm tools for its pilot line set up inside the new Fab 6 facility in Tainan (see March 30 story). The pilot line will start conservative testing of the 300-mm gear using a 0.18-micron all aluminum metal process, which is nearly an exact match to what TSMC is now running in volume on 200-mm wafers.
"We want to do a 'copy exact' approach from 8- to 12-inch wafers, and this isn't the approach Intel is taking," noted N.S. Tsai, senior director of the 300-mm pilot line at TSMC. "Intel is starting 12-inch at 0.13-micron and copper with a target of production in the fourth quarter of next year, while we are initially taking an easier approach--0.18-micron and aluminum interconnects." Consequently, TSMC believes it will put 12-inch wafers into production earlier than Intel.
But the speed at which TSMC moves from pilot production to volume processing in two new planned 300-mm fabs will hinge on the success of the initial tool sets and the marketplace, Tsai said. "Those fabs will depend upon the success of our runs in the next six months, and of course, the market conditions," he added.
But TSMC believes it already has a great deal of experience or "learning" under its belt, even without running any 12-inch wafer in its new Fab 6 facility. That's because the foundry company has sent out thousands of 300-mm wafers to tool suppliers to have them processed using the company's recipes. "We are sending out more than 1,000-2,000 wafers to test thin-films in Japan, for example, and then they are flown across the Pacific Ocean to the U.S. where Sematech helps us with lithography. We have also sent wafers to ASM Lithography in the Netherlands, and then on to Applied and Lam Research for etching," he explained.
"So we are able to generate and test out our 1.0 recipe on all kinds of tools before they arrive, and we already have a TSMC-compliant recipe available from the vendors," Tsai said.
Like many other chip managers and analysts, Tsai said he remains somewhat concerned about the supply of 300-mm production wafers because material suppliers have been unable to invest in new capacity as a result of losses in the last downturn. Many market marker observers and equipment executives believe the supply of 300-mm wafers is sufficient until volume production facilities begin to ramp manufacturing. By then, additional wafer-making lines will be needed to keep the 300-mm movement going. |
