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

To: Mephisto who wrote (37349)	9/21/2000 2:38:20 PM
From: Gottfried	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

Mephisto, for even more amusement read the Street.com story on the Whittington flip-flop. thestreet.com G.

To: Mephisto who wrote (37349)	9/21/2000 3:22:38 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

Taiwan Fabs Increase Output as Sales Soar This year's sales by Taiwan's foundries are booming. They are also doing the necessary R&D to insure that they will remain first tier IC manufacturers. Sales reports for the first half of 2000 were published in July for both Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) and it looks to be a stellar year for both companies. Through the first half of this year, sales of TSMC have totaled US$2.164 billion. This represents a 114% increase over the US$1.01 billion in sales from the first half of 1999. While UMC's sales volume is less than TSMC's, their percentage growth from that of last year is even more impressive. Through the first half of 2000, UMC's US$1.458 billion in sales represents a 221% increase from those in the first half of 1999. One of the reasons for both companies' success is the demand for IC fabrication. "It's hard to gauge over capacity,'' said Ron Norris, vice president of worldwide marketing and sales for TSMC. "An estimate for TSMC is that we are currently working at about 110% over capacity." Capacity Overload Obviously, neither company can produce more than their capacity. The term is more of a way of judging demand versus supply. "It's a kind of balancing act between our different customers," said Norris. "We might have three or four customers making the same kind of IC. All are predicting that they need the capacity to have a 50% share of their market. "We let the market decide who will need the capacity." The other reason for the tremendous revenue growth of Taiwan's foundry powerhouses is that they have been aggressively adding production capacity. TSMC is set to produce 3.4 million 8-inch wafers this year. This is an 88% increase from 1999's 1.8 million 8-inch wafers. UMC has seen somewhat less growth. They say they will produce 2.38 million 8-inch wafers this year. That's a 33% growth from their 1999 production of 1.78 million 8-inch wafers. First Buyers Both UMC and TSMC now offer process technology that is one year ahead of the industry norm. Recently, National Semiconductor licensed a technology transfer from TSMC for the fabrication of logic devices. This is the first time that an IDM has bought technology from a foundry. Moving into the future, Taiwan's foundries are researching and investing in technology that will sustain them into the next few years. TSMC in early July successfully manufactured a 4-Mbit SRAM chip with full copper interconnects using a 0.13micron process. TSMC's latest effort used Dow Chemical's SiLK k dielectric and a spin on deposition process for the test chip. "I'm still very concerned regarding the reliability of this process and dielectric," said Chiang Shang-yi, vice president of R&D for TSMC. "SiLK works with some kinds of packaging. With others though it tends to not bind correctly." TSMC is now commercially producing primarily dual layer copper interconnect 0.15micron ICs using a Fluorinated Slicate Glass (FSG) dielectric. FSG's k dielectric value is around 3.6. The top two layers of interconnects are copper while the remaining layers use an aluminum interconnect. "When mature, SiLK and Applied Materials' Black Diamond will be much better choices for a dielectric than FSG," said Chiang. "I have some hesitation with using a (carbon based) organic dielectric such as Black Diamond. Silicon-based dielectrics have a more proven track history." Research Time Extended Originally, TSMC planned to have made a decision by the end of June on which dielectric and copper deposition process to use for the migration to 0.13micron(Table). Chiang would rather get it right, though. "I'd rather run two or three research teams now in order to investigate all the possibilities rather than make a hasty decision," he said. Eight different customers are currently using TSMC's 0.15micron copper process at the tape out stage. Two different options at 0.15micron offered by TSMC. One utilizes two copper layers for use with high-speed products. Full copper interconnect is also offered for the production of ASIC products. One customer has taped out at 0.15micron using full copper. Qualification and risk production of the 0.15micron copper process is set for this month for two layer ICs and for December for all layer copper. by David Baldwin (September 2000 Issue, Nikkei Electronics Asia)