4 ms·

I think the deal breaker is "without retooling". For one thing there's a lot of steps involved in photomask -> repeat. If your masks are all built for a smalle

I think the deal breaker is "without retooling". For one thing there's a lot of steps involved in photomask -> repeat. If your masks are all built for a smaller wafer size, or a different focal length setup or physical process diameter, then they literally won't fit in the die, or won't focus correctly. You'll run into similar issues all up and down the chain. If your doping and prep all assumes a smaller wafer or different geometry, you're out of luck either physically because things don't fit, or because your chemistry needs to be redone. Your various deposition, bake and cure steps will necessarily also assume a process geometry, because some of the processes diffuse out from the center, or at different angles relative to some source that's bombarding them. It's sort of akin to saying "well if we can build a vw bug they can build a model-T". Generations of equipment changes make things incompatible.

lief79 5y ago
As someone with no experience in this area, I think you're ignoring the option of making the equivalent parts on the newer equipment. The design costs would be higher (based on what I read, the new methods are more complex and costly), but if you're legally required to do so ... this would possibly be faster and cheaper then redesigning the factory. Larger wafers, larger yields, etc ... once working they could probably meet the required output quickly(month long delay?), provided the demand / legal punishments are great enough to justify the costs.