Infineon Announces 300 mm Thin Wafers
Infineon says it is the first company to have successfully produced chips on 300 mm thin wafers, which will be used for high-voltage semiconductors.
According to the manufacturer, these Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors (MOSFETs) offer the same behavior as those previously manufactured on 200 mm wafers (in diameter, not thickness), but will enable the company to produce the chips much more efficiently.
“Our engineers’ achievement marks a quantum leap in production technology,” said Reinhard Ploss, Operations, Research & Development and Labor Director at Infineon Technologies. “Innovation lays the foundation for profitable growth. Innovation secures our edge over the competition.”
300 mm wafers have been used for common chips such as CPUs for more than a decade, but certain individual segments still rely on 200 mm technology as the production volume does not justify a switch to the more expensive 300 mm technology.
However, Infineon had the advantage of already having a 300mm production plant; the thin wafers are produced in the former Qimonda DRAM plant in Villach, Austria.
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Douglas Perry was a freelance writer for Tom's Hardware covering semiconductors, storage technology, quantum computing, and processor power delivery. He has authored several books and is currently an editor for The Oregonian/OregonLive.
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Lekko I think we should stop using the term 'quantum leap' when talking about semiconductor tech unless the leap in question is in fact quantum in nature.Reply -
Antimatter79 I think people should stop using the term "quantum leap" altogether when they don't know what it means, and they actually apply it in situations when what they do mean is actually the total opposite. You would think that an R&D and Labor director would have a background with a degree in physics, in which case he should know that quantum leaps are very small, not very large.Reply -
Neverdyne So from what I read, they are making an already existing technology that was already being used to make CPUs more affordable for other types of chips. Even if you could say a "quantum leap" meant a very big advancement, I don't see how it would apply here.Reply -
danwat1234 LOL, I don't think a wafer that is 300mm thick, is very thin. Ok now I get it (diameter), makes perfect sens to use larger wafers so each batch produces more chips.Reply -
PuckerFactor 300mm=30cm which is almost 1ft...I think they mean the width of the wafer....not the thickness?Reply -
Interesting.Reply
Im guessing this move is mainly so they can stack more layers in memory chips. You can only stack so thick before you run into thermal problems. -
dontknownotsure LekkoI think we should stop using the term 'quantum leap' when talking about semiconductor tech unless the leap in question is in fact quantum in nature.what? molecular leap?Reply -
lunyone Here's some very informative data on switching from 150mm/200mm/300mm/450mm if you want to know about the different dimensional differences.Reply
http://smithsonianchips.si.edu/ice/cd/CEICM/SECTION7.pdf
From what I read for SEMI specifications here:
http://www.virginiasemi.com/pdf/semi%20specificationsoverview71002.pdf
300mm diameter (+/-0.2mm)
775um thickness (+/-20um)