SGS-Thompson plans 300-mm R&D line

08/01/1998

SGS-Thomson plans300-mm R&D line

With about $1 billion in investments at hand, SGS-Thomson is planning to build a 300-mm pilot line beginning next year in Crolles, France, and a new nonvolatile memory pilot line in Italy that will see 0.13-?m process technologies in place by 2003. The chipmaker is planning to invest about $500 million in each project. The 300-mm R&D center, dubbed Crolles 2, will be built next to the existing Crolles 1 center, which has collaborated with publicly funded research groups such as LETI and GRESSI in developing advanced processes down to 0.18-?m. Likewise, Crolles 2 will see collaboration, but on 300-mm CMOS and BiCMOS processes, with a total of 600 researchers from both SGS-Thomson and the research groups working there. No word was available on whether the project cost would be shared by SGS-Thomson and the research groups. First silicon is expected to be processed in 2000.

In a second project, SGS-Thomson said it will expand its existing R1 memories center in Agrate, Brianza, Italy. The new center, R2, will develop flash memory technologies, and employ about 600 researchers within the next five years. The center will be capable of using 0.13-?m lithography technologies by 2003.

Separately, French research consortium GRESSI-CNET said it has processed a 300-mm wafer using DUV photoresist and a 193-nm stepper from Exitech Ltd. Wafer processing was performed on Fairchild Technologies` Falcon 300-mm track. Both Fairchild and Exitech provided process support.

According to officials, the 300-mm wafer was coated, exposed, and developed using a single-layer, wet developed 193-nm photoresist; the Exitech stepper, developed during GRESSI`s ELLIPSE program, is fully equipped with a Tropel lens. The Falcon track is equipped with a special chuck design with centering device, developed out of technologies used to process larger substrates in the FPD equipment industry. - C.L.