United Business Media EE Times


Search

HOMELATEST NEWSSEMICONDUCTORSMOST POPULARMARKET INTELLIGENCE UNITFORUMSDESIGNNEW PRODUCTSCAREERSBLOGSCONTACTEVENTSSIGN UP!RSS

 

Leading-edge fab costs soar to $4 billion








Silicon Strategies


SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The days of "real men have fabs" is over, as the cost of a new, leading-edge plant is soaring out of control and running at about $4 billion each today, according to analysts and chip makers at the Semico Summit conference here.

Not long ago, the total cost for a 300-mm, 0.13-micron wafer fab was around $2-to-$3 billion each. Now, the cost for a 300-mm, 90-nm (0.09-micron) plant is approximately $4 billion, said Joe Osha, principal semiconductor analyst for Merrill-Lynch, during a presentation at the Semico Summit today.

"The cost of a new fab is absolutely enormous," said Edward Ross, president of TSMC North America, the U.S. subsidiary of silicon foundry giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC).

"We have reached the point where very few companies can build factories," Ross said during a separate presentation at the Semico Summit. "New technologies will also become more expensive and difficult to develop. Foundries and their customers must form close collaborative partnerships."

The days that "real men have fabs are over," Ross said. The saying that "real men have fabs" was coined by W.J. Sanders III, chairman of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. At one time, Sanders believed that only real chip makers had fabs, but AMD is changing its tune, by recently forming foundry ties with IBM Corp. and Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corp.

"AMD will continue to have its own fabs, but foundries are the future," Sanders said in a presentation at the conference.











  Free Subscription to EE Times
First Name Last Name
Company Name Title
Email address
  Click here for your Free Subscription to EETimes Europe
 
CAREER CENTER
Ready to take that job and shove it?
SEARCH JOBS
SPONSOR

RECENT JOB POSTINGS
CAREER NEWS
Federal CTO Sees IT Leading U.S. Out Of Recession
Aneesh Chopra is looking to other CIOs to advise him on fleshing out a more detailed agenda to best serve the president's IT agenda.

For more great jobs, career related news, features and services, please visit EETimes' Career Center.



All White Papers »   

  Around Silicon Strategies

FPGA startup crunch: These articles are part of a series that examines the status of various FPGA startups in light of the economic recession. Startups Abound Logic, Achronix Semiconductor and Cswitch are all on the hot seat. More...

10 fab technologies on the hot seat: There's trouble brewing in chip-making paradise. Delivery of chips at 32-nm and beyond won't be a cool breeze. EE Times has constructed the following list of 10 fab technologies that could make or break future IC scaling. More...

6 fab technologies on the bubble: It isn't going to be a slam-dunk to deliver chips at 32-nm and beyond. See our story about 10 fab technologies on the hot seat. Then read this article: 6 technologies on the bubble. More...

Our take on Intel-River: With its acquisition of embedded software leader Wind River Systems Inc., Intel Corp. has unambiguously signaled that it is again attempting to diversify beyond X86 processors. Here's our take on the deal. More...

CEVA's reversal: When Gideon Wertheizer, CEVA's CEO, came to New York to ring the closing bell at Nasdaq to celebrate the company's 10th year anniversary, he talked about CEVA's 21.6 percent revenue growth in 2008. More...

Hot technologies to watch for in 2009: Every technologist, marketer, industry analyst and reporter on a hunt for the next big thing is bracing for the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show scheduled less than a month away. More...

Top 20 predictions for semis in 2009: To help sort out the confusion in the market, EE Times has released its own chip forecasts--and other predictions--for 2009. So, what will happen in analog, FPGAs, foundry, memory, MPUs and other sectors? More...

Silicon 60 version 8.0 The EE Times 60 Emerging Startups list, first published in April 2004, has been updated to version 8.0 to reflect the latest corporate, commercial, technology and market conditions. More...

 
Education and
Learning


Learn Now:












Home | About | Editorial Calendar | Feedback | Subscriptions | Newsletter | Media Kit | Contact | Reprints|  RSS|   Digital|  Mobile
Network Websites
International
Network Features




All materials on this site Copyright © 2009 TechInsights, a Division of United Business Media LLC All rights reserved.
Privacy Statement | Terms of Service | About