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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (3223)	9/24/2002 5:42:21 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Soitec opens 300-mm SOI wafer fab in France By David Lammers EE Times (09/24/02 03:17 p.m. EST) BERNIN, France — Moving to make silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology available in higher volumes and at lower prices, Soitec SA opened its second factory here Tuesday (Sept. 24). The factory will provide 300-mm SOI wafers in commercial quantities. "We believe that over the period of the 90-nm, 65-nm, and 45-nm nodes, SOI technology will become the new standard," said Soitec president Andre Auberton-Herve, who cofounded the company with a group of researchers from France's Laboratoire d'Electronique de Technologies et d'Instrumentation (LETI). Soitec, which currently supplies about 70 percent of the SOI wafer market, increased its revenues by 147 percent in 2001, according to market researcher VLSI Research Inc. (San Jose, Calif.). The move from 200-mm to larger 300-mm wafers is important to manufacturers of microprocessors, which tend to have larger die sizes and therefore could utilize the larger platters. Soitec has been making prototype 300-mm SOI wafers at its first factory here, which opened in 1998. That facility is now fully loaded, and has an annual production capacity of about 800,000 equivalent 200-mm wafers per year. Soitec's second factory, Bernin II, gradually will be equipped to make both 300-mm and 200-mm wafers, with an expectation that most or perhaps all production will be centered on 300-mm wafers. Bernin II is large enough to make about 1.2 million 200-mm equivalent wafers per year, though that number may increase as higher-throughput equipment is developed and installed, said Andrew Wittkower, president of Soitec USA (Peabody, Mass.). Microprocessor vendors, notably IBM, Motorola and Advanced Micro Devices, have developed high-performance MPUs using SOI technology, and Honeywell has converted much of its production of aerospace and defense ICs to SOI. However, reducing the cost of SOI substrates is considered key to moving the technology into low-power mobile systems. A 200-mm SOI wafer now costs about $400 to $500, according to IBM fellow and SOI pioneer Ghavam Shahidi. A 300-mm substrate can cost three times as much. "The biggest issue facing SOI is the cost of the wafers — not performance, not design complexity," said Shahidi. "Cost is the number one issue, and today the SOI wafers are still very expensive." Shahidi was among several hundred invited guests who attended the opening of the Bernin II facility here, 20 kilometers outside of Grenoble. IBM's moves IBM has been test running bulk silicon wafers at its new 300-mm wafer fab in Fishkill, N.Y. since April, and ,expects to begin processing 300-mm SOI wafers there this month, said Robert Bendernagel, an IBM technology procurement manager. "In one to two years, we definitely would like the price of an SOI 300-mm wafer to be in the $700 range, down from the $1,000 to $1,500 range now," Bendernagel said, adding that Soitec's new factory will aid the effort to increase SOI wafer volumes. IBM procures SOI wafers from Soitec, from Ibis Technology Corp. and several others, he said. IBM's internal SOI production capabilities will be phased out after its transition from 200-mm to 300-mm wafers is complete.