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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James Calladine who wrote (36982)	8/25/2000 10:12:10 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

300-mm 'window' open until August 2001 before next slump rises risks, say analysts A dozen or more companies attempt to pull up schedules for new 12-inch wafer fabs while market boom continue By J. Robert Lineback Semiconductor Business News (08/25/00, 09:29:54 AM EDT) SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- The rush in on to accelerate plans for new 300-mm wafer-processing lines as a dozen or more chip makers attempt to hit a tricky market window and avoid ramping those expensive fabs into volume production in the middle of the next downturn. Industry analysts at a panel discussion here this week agreed that the 300-mm movement was real and now speeding up, but they also said chip makers face tremendous risks in the timing of the first 300-mm production lines. "It really is a bet-your-company decision," observed analyst G. Dan Hutcheson, president of VLSI Research Inc., based in San Jose. During the mid-year analyst session, hosted by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI), analysts agreed that production volumes from 300-mm fabs would not become significant until 2003, but pressures were mounting on the early users of large substrates to get their frontend lines set up the next year. Dataquest Inc.'s currently tally of announced 300-mm (12-inch) wafer fabs shows seven production fabs being set up in 2001, followed by 11 in 2002. Between 1998 and this year, the industry will have set up a half dozen 300-mm pilot lines and development facilities, based on announced plans, according to Klaus-Dieter Rinnen, chief analyst and director of semiconductor manufacturing analysis at Dataquest in San Jose. "We believe a good portion of these [11 fabs planned for 2002] will be shells for the next upturn," said Rinnen, suggesting that while companies are attempting to pull up their schedules for 300-mm wafer processing, they will eventually decide to postpone equipping those plants in two years. In an interview prior to his presentation, Rinnen said about $2-to-$2.5 billion will be spent on 300-mm tools in 2000. Most of those revenues are going to R&D facilities, but next year and through 2002, chip companies will be buying 300-mm systems for the first production lines, he added. Currently, the economics of larger 300-mm wafers still do not favor the 12-inch substrates compared to the industry's workhorse 200-mm (8-inch) fabs. "We don't think the 300-mm economics will play out before 2002, and so we don't see 300-mm really coming into play too much before then--2002 is pretty much a wild card," said Clark J. Fuhs, vice president at J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. "There is no question that there will be a fair amount of 300-mm activity in the next couple of years, but the question is do they produce any revenue?" quizzed Fuhs during the panel discussion at the SEMI meeting. Measurable chip revenues from 300-mm wafers will most likely begin in the 2002-2003 timeframe, said Fuhs, who recently joined J.P. Morgan after heading up semiconductor capital equipment research at Dataquest. "During Semicon West, TSMC [silicon foundry giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd.] did predict that a portion of its 2002 revenue would be 300-mm wafers," noted Fuhs. But the pressure to accelerate 300-mm schedules is being driven by the "FUD" factor (fear uncertainly and doubt) as much as it is the current boom times in semiconductor capital spending. "The reason why so many [projects] are coming in so fast is that companies are pulling in 300-mm [to get started earlier]," said VLSI Resarch's Hutcheson. "If you miss [setting up facilities] next August, you cannot ramp and get revenue out of the line by 2002, which means you are at risk of having the facility come on line in the middle of the downturn," he warned. However, Hutcheson said semiconductor manufacturers are in a better position overall to make the conversion from 200- to 300-mm wafers because of industrywide efforts to ramp 12-inch fabs. "There has been no wafer size conversion in history--in fact no major technology implementation--where companies have worked together to such degree to make it happen," he assured fab equipment executives attending the SEMI panel discussion on Wednesday. "This is the first time we have seen companies plan multiple fabs all at once. Usually, companies wait for a guinea pig to develop the technology and lose a ton of money first," said the San Jose-based analyst. "So much more is know about 300-mm than 200-mm [at the same stage in development]. But I still think 300-mm is coming along pretty well."