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Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hmaly who wrote (73938)	3/7/2002 6:07:10 PM
From: semiconeng	Respond to of 275872

Semicongeng Re...Some small die can fit 3/4/5/6 die on a Mask, some larger die can only fit 1/2. <<<<<< How large is the chrome pattern then. A 10" per side pattern would yield a 1 sq. inch pattern on the wafer, if I read you right. I see your logic (1" x 1" at the die), but I don't think it translates like that (maybe I'm wrong). 10" per side at the reticle would be 100 sq inches of chrome (Area = LxW), so 100 sq inches reduced 10:1 should equal 10 sq inches of die. You need to take the area of the chrome and reduce it 10x. That it would be, but with these small sizes, I thought that the ability to line up the die to within a hundred thousanth of an inch (or whatever)on 9 different passes, for each die and multiplying it by the die/wafer would be worse. There's not that much error. The die size is exact, the space between the die is exact, the only variable I see is the wafer size. 200mm is not always exactly 200mm, but since steppers align each wafer (and measure the size) of the wafer, at the start of each wafer shoot, even that variable is eliminated. Modern steppers have extremely accurate positioning. Some of the Stepper Wafer Chuck drives I've seen lately use "magnetic" drives, floating on a magnetic field to eliminate motor vibration. I've seen steppers where positioning accuracy is even finer that you suggest. Secondly, I was thinking that Intel's big production savings on the 300 mm wafers came from the ability to shoot more die each time. However, if the machines can only do, say, 2 die per stepping, then only the amount of setup time to change the wafers would be shortened. Would that by itself save 30% on production costs? I don't believe that anybody said all the savings will come from Litho.... Give us other guys some credit too.... And most here probably won't believe me, but I think 30% sounds about right.... Even CONSERVATIVE..... Once the PE's get their hands on it, that is..... :-) Semi