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To: Pink Minion who wrote (17169)	11/18/2000 4:18:21 AM
From: Andrew Vance	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 17305

This actually is a diffiult question, since there are factors to consider. Therefore, I will keep it short and you need to get a bit more info. 1. IF you had a retcile set for the Flash device or if you have a design you know works (from al icense or another fab of yours), you could start wafer within a week. 2. This start date assumes that there are no process changes that need to be made that are unique to the flash device or that it will be easy to implement the process changes. This assumes no new equipment needs to be installed. 3. The cycle time from start to finish in the fab is a conservative 6 weeks and maybe a few weeks more to turn the wafers into die, assembly and testing of the final devices. 4. So, on one hand, if everything is smooth, I would expect the pipeline can be filled within 13 weeks. SO, the first answer is 13 weeks for the first finished products to be ready to ship to customers. This assumes that the fab can handle the ramp and the transition. Some of these fabs, even though they are suffering from lower DRAM prices, may still have contractual committments to customers for certain volumes. Next we move into the realm of the "not so smooth" transition. Unless the fab you are talking about has previuosly run Flash in the fab, they will be required to qualify the product internally and at the end customer. Certain companies have adopted a "test device" that qualifies their line for any new device that runs through a given process. So even if the Flash can fit in immiediately, any new process xould require a lengthy re-qual cycle that will more than likely add close to 6 months of re;liability testing both internally and externally. the testing, assembly, and packaging of a Flash device willmore than likely be different from that od DRAM. As such, there may be issues with the testing, assembly, and packaging of the new devices. this moght affect the flow of product at the Assembly subscontractors that may need to be addressed. So for what it is worth, and I apologize for just briefly highlighting some "flies in the ointment" I would say the most aggressive conversion would take 13 weeks to have the pipeline in place, assuming everything is smooth. More than likely it will be 6 months until they are fully ramped into production, and if things are not smooth it couls take up to 1 year to develop, implement, and ramp a qualified process, if the Flash device has never been run in that fab and the end customer requires full qualification. If we had a few more particulars, we might be able to refine the numbers, but for now, I would guess a full conversion of a fab would take close to 9 months on the average. Andrew