450mm wafers slated for Intel 2008 start

CHIP GIANT Intel has already started planning for fabrication microprocessors on 450mm wafers, it said today.

Paolo Gargini, senior technology strategist at Intel, also said that production of silicon using 45 nanometre process technology was likely to start towards the end of 2007.

Gargini, speaking here at the Intel Developer Forum, said that discussions in the semiconductor industry on the larger wafer sizes would start to be planned during 2006 and 2007, with some activities beginning in 2008. However, he said that only 25 per cent of the semiconductor has moved to 12-inch, despite its introduction in 2001.

For the 45 nanometre process shrink, Intel will have already selected the equipment and made its planning decisions by the middle of this year. For the smaller 32 nanometre size, Intel has until the end of 2007 to make its final decisions.

Gargini said Intel is actively exploring the use of compound semiconductors with some materials giving vastly better performance than silicon. For example, he said that using indium antimony was likely to scale down to needing voltage of a piffling 200millivolts. Intel has already succeeded in making semiconductors that only use .3 volts.

Gargini had a 45 nanometre test bed 12 inch wafer to show off to the assembled hackettes and hack. That's below.