Modular fab design challenges status quo

11/01/2002

I agree almost 100% with your excellent September editorial, "Can fabs be built twice as fast for half the cost?" I wonder, however, whether a nascent semiconductor-manufacturing country like China would be willing or able to implement an idea as novel as modular fab design.

If major manufacturers from the US and Japan keep doing business as usual, my concept of quick replacement and leasing of equipment may not be easily realized. Major fab builders wish to protect their investments in existing 300mm fabs, so won't want to change conventional 300mm fab design. With no pressure from users to change design, manufacturers will have no incentive to enter the leasing business or to create equipment with a minimum footprint.

So, I challenge semiconductor company CEOs to "think outside the box!" If the modular concept is adopted, the leasing
eplacement plan for both fab and equipment suppliers will keep the volume of equipment high. The flexibility of adding new modules will attract a new group of equipment users, and the enlarged market will lower the equipment/module cost. In addition, universities and independent labs will be able to purchase similar modules to use in process development, making it easier to integrate new equipment into a fab.

— Bevan Wu, president, BW & Associates,
[email protected]

Clarification
In " of aggressive gases on capacitance manometers," (Oct., p. 61), the concentration of the alloy elements should have read (72% Ni, 15.5% Cr, 8% Fe) in the second paragraph and (49% Fe, 28% Ni, 23% Co) in the fourth.