After the nomination of several competing proposals International Sematech, SEMI and other representatives of the semiconductor industry, the first so-called mechanical standard for the 450-mm silicon substrates. It sets the thickness of the plate, which should be 925 plus or minus 25 microns. In comparison, the 300-mm wafer is 775 microns thick. Specialists point out that the adoption of this standard is key to the development of next-generation manufacturing processes, allowing to begin preparations for manufacturing and other systems for the future 450-mm factories.
The next stage in the standardization of 450-mm production should be a vote to determine the thickness of the test substrates, scheduled for November. It is anticipated that this procedure is quite formal, as a serious alternative to a thickness of 925 microns are not yet there. Finally, before the widespread application of wafer size should be adopted by the standard thickness of the production of substrates that can happen in 2010 or 2011.
to approximate the beginning of an era of 450-mm consortium Sematech last year announced plans to develop a test set of integration of production, which should simplify the task of developing basic equipment for the production of chips:podatchikov, loaders and other modules. Previously, for 450-mm tool provides specification step, 10 mm, but is now preparing a demonstration of Sematech specifications with step 9, 2 mm, providing acceptable disparity substrate 0, 353. Weight 450-mm wafer with a thickness of the proposed 330 grams, it is assumed that this weight and strength will be enough to harvest normally pass through processing equipment, while maintaining acceptable performance movement after bendings.
At the same time, the emergence of the term of existing 450-mm plants remains unclear. According to preliminary data, Intel, TSMC and Samsung plan to submit a prototype 450-mm production in 2012 or so. At the same time, is still a sufficient number of skeptics who believe that the transition to 450-mm wafer is not held at all - because of the excessive costs of research and development needed for this step.
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