We have lots of news out of SEMICON West from last week, including a significant, overriding trend to the megafab. No, we're not talking about 100,000 wafer starts per month but more like 200,000 300 mm wafer starts per month. These memory-based megafabs make the argument for 450 mm wafers look stronger all the time. People heading up the 450 mm effort at ISMI talked to Dave Lammers, our news editor, about how the attitude towards 450 mm is slowly changing. Meanwhile, Hynix and others are shutting down their less cost-effective 200 mm facilities. As always, you can always find our latest wafer processing updates at our Wafer Processing Technology Channel:

Laura Peters, Editor-in-Chief
lpeters@reedbusiness.com

Funding for ISMI 450 mm Effort Doubling
David Lammers, News Editor — Semiconductor International, 7/22/2008

The 450 mm wafer development effort is increasing funding for the Interoperability Test Bed (ITB) now underway at Sematech's Austin, Texas, facility amid continuing discussions about how the chipmakers might subsidize 450 mm equipment development, proponents said at SEMICON West in San Francisco last week. More

Memory Moves to Megafabs for NAND
David Lammers, News Editor — Semiconductor International, 7/17/2008

When Novellus Systems' (Milpitas, Calif.) CEO Rick Hill went to Korea not long ago to visit Hynix Semiconductor Inc. (Icheon, Korea), he bunny-suited up to go through the M11 fab and was astounded at the sheer size of the place, while also pleased to hear about the $8B budgeted for equipment. Over the next few years, several fabs with 150,000-200,000 wafer starts per month (wspm) will be constructed, with an eye to the potentially huge market for NAND flash used in solid-state disk drives (SSDs). More

Roadmap Signals Showstoppers
Laura Peters, Editor-in-Chief — Semiconductor International, 7/17/2008

The overall theme of the 2008 update to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) is a slight slowdown of gate-length scaling for high-performance and low-standby-power devices, but the low-power device target dates will not change. At the ITRS presentations given last week, chairs of each of the individual technology working groups (TWGs) summarized pivotal changes in this year's roadmap. More

SMIC Lays Foundation for Shenzhen Fab
Yao Gang, Editor-in-Chief, SI China — Semiconductor International, 6/30/2008

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) kicked off construction of the 200 mm fab it is building in the southern city of Shenzhen, with support from the Shenzhen city government. The line is expected to begin pilot production late next year, followed by construction of a 300 mm line. More

Intermolecular Speeds R&D for Elpida's Next-Gen Memory
Aaron Hand, Executive Editor, Electronic Media — Semiconductor International, 7/15/2008

Intermolecular Inc. (San Jose) announced a new collaborative development program (CDP) and licensing agreement with Elpida Memory Inc. (Tokyo) to enable rapid development of new materials and process technologies for its next-generation memory chips. The CDP will use Intermolecular's PVD and ALD workflows and applications. More

Hynix to Close Eugene Fab; Other 200 mm Fabs May Shut
Staff — Semiconductor International, 7/24/2008

Hynix Semiconductor Inc. announced it will close its 200 mm Eugene, Ore., fab, and is likely to shutter other 200 mm fabs in Asia. Hynix is considering its options for other 200 mm fabs, such as selling the equipment. More