New materials, 300-mm tool changeover test industry mettle

摘要

For its next trick, the semiconduc-tor industry will emerge from one of its worst down cycles, shift most production to 300-mm wafers, and introduce a host of untried process materials. Drum roll, please. It's not quite the equivalent of juggling five dinner plates while balancing on one foot. But the message that emerged from selected seminars, conferences, and speeches at Semicon West this year makes it clear that front-end processes from this point will present strong challenges to chipmakers, suppliers, and researchers. Several speakers at the mid-July event insisted that meeting those challenges would require increased collaboration among the various parts of the semiconductor community.