IBM plans 300-mm fab at east fishkill site
01/01/1998
IBM plans 300-mm fab at East Fishkill site
IBM will build a new developmental 300-mm wafer fab in East Fishkill, NY, and plans to begin producing DRAMs with 0.18-?m design rules by the end of 1999. The computer giant also plans to upgrade its x-ray lithography development program to handle 300-mm wafers.
Work at the $700 million facility will "quickly shift" to 0.15-?m geometries, said IBM, which expects to develop 1-Gbit DRAM manufacturing processes for use on 300-mm substrates. Later work will address logic devices and ASICs. The new fab will be built in Building 323 of the Hudson Valley Research Park, an empty structure located near the company`s Advanced Semiconductor Technology Center (ASTC), traditional home of leading-edge development work.
The ASTC is also home to IBM`s x-ray lithography research, housing an Oxford Instruments synchrotron x-ray source and exposure tools made by Karl Suss (now Suss Advanced Lithography). Sources indicated that there has been a high-level decision at IBM to use x-ray techniques for trial production of actual devices, including a 1-Gbit DRAM design and a microprocessor, with an eye toward evaluating its cost and performance against advanced optical technologies.
In addition, IBM plans to address development of 300-mm silicon-germanium materials for high-speed communications chips, operating at speeds >100GHz. Copper metallization will be used in the new processes. The new fab will be among the first to be built on US soil; its time frame is slightly behind that of Intel`s development fab, which is being built in Oregon. Texas Instruments is reportedly planning a 300-mm development facility in Dallas, in addition to a manufacturing facility in Italy.
About 400 new jobs will be created at the new facility. IBM is receiving a number of financial incentives from the State of New York, including $13 million in grants for employee training and capital costs for the fab and two office building projects; sales tax abatements worth $8.8 million for capital costs; and property tax abatements valued at $6 million. In addition, the New York State Department of Transportation is providing $3.5 million worth of road improvements in East Fishkill. - P.N.D.
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Why do logic fabs cost more than DRAM fabs?
Here`s a look at cost differentials between DRAM and logic fabs, based on figures developed by Montgomery Securities analysts Brett Hodess and Bill Ong for their industry overview report on the capital equipment market. The pair peg the cost of a typical 0.35-?m, 200-mm, 5000 wafer/week logic fab at $1.19 billion, and a comparable DRAM fab at $1.0 billion. They assume a five-layer metal process for logic and two layers for DRAM, which means higher deposition and etch costs. Those extra machines have to go somewhere, which means the cleanroom has to be bigger - and higher building costs account for the bulk of the cost split. - P.N.D.