Fab: money can not be able to afford

From the semiconductor manufacturers around the world started to build a 12 inch wafer factory and put into production, has been more than 10 years, these 10 years, the biggest advantage is the 12 inch plant, will significantly reduce the cost of the chip, also let the semiconductor process smoothly in Moore's Law (Moore s Law) go down.

Moore's law has developed so far, the world's mainstream process will officially enter the 28 nanometer generation in 2013, and in 2014, but also once again into the nano 20. Because the process of miniature too small, 12 inch wafer bring economies of scale, has been unable to offset process scaling when pull high cost, therefore, to larger wafer size 18 inch wafer, will be the next 3~5 years, semiconductor factory not go the way.

The 18 inch wafer generation coming, can bring the benefits of the technology industry, including the cost of the chip can be greatly reduced, compared with the 12 inch wafer, in the same process 18 inch chip factory production costs decline, at least up to 3. And the cost of the chip effectively decreased, the price of electronic products can be more close to the people, low price can bring greater demand, the future will get below $500 laptop or smart mobile phone for $100, is no longer a dream.

In addition, the process to 16/14 or 12/10 nano nano micro chip, power toward the 3D architecture development, the biggest advantage is the power consumption can be greatly reduced, so the advanced process used in the 18 inch wafer, characteristics of ultra low power and super power, is in line with the global trend of energy saving and carbon reduction.

However, the 18 inch wafer is not every semiconductor factory can play games. As long as the semiconductor factory to build factories and buy equipment, can enjoy the cost advantage of 12 inch factory. But the 18 inch wafer not only the wafer size, process technology development more difficult, especially in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) or multiple electron beam (Multi E-Beam) R & D lithography is the key, if not crossed this threshold, even if the cover 18 inch plant and build good production line. No production capacity.

From this point of view, the global semiconductor factory's 18 inch wafer, even 10 not to, the future who has a 18 inch plant, who can become the semiconductor market bully, even control the sales of electronic products, and TSMC 28 nanometer intelligent mobile phone sales capacity shortage caused by the sale of stagnation, may be just a small case. Therefore, the industry believes that the 18 inches of plant generations, will bring greater structural changes in the semiconductor industry.