Industry not ready for 450-mm, says Applied

HALF MOON BAY, Calif. — Mike Splinter, president and chief executive of Applied Materials Inc., warned that the semiconductor equipment industry is not ready to move full speed ahead and develop next-generation, 450-mm tools due to a funding shortfall in the overall business.

Splinter also warned that the funding shortfall for equipment R&D could reach $20 billion by 2012 if current technology and economic trends continue.

“This presents a problem with our industry,” Splinter said in a keynote address at the Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) event here on Tuesday (Jan. 10).

As a result of this shortfall, the semiconductor-equipment industry must focus and spend its R&D dollars more wisely, he said. The Applied executive suggested that the industry could spend its R&D dollars in three areas: improve the installed base; develop future technologies; and devise the next-generation 450-mm wafer size.

Chip makers will eventually move into the 450-mm domain, but the industry cannot afford to develop tools for the next-generation wafer size in the near term, he said. At least one company, Intel Corp., is urging the industry to migrate towards 450-mm fabs in the 2012 to 2014 time frame.

“I think we should focus on other things than a wafer size conversion,” he said. “We need to do it eventually. I don’t think we currently need to do this.”

Instead, the IC-equipment industry “should focus on high returns” with their respective R&D dollars, he said. The industry should be investing in several areas, including lithography productivity, systematic defect elimination, among others, he said.