3 ms·

This video seems to be doing much better job at explaining the problem [1]. Long story short there's high demand for trailing edge (50nm+) tech, but it is not

by comboy 4y ago

This video seems to be doing much better job at explaining the problem [1]. Long story short there's high demand for trailing edge (50nm+) tech, but it is not worth investing in building more of these for number of reasons mentioned in the video (huge investment, long time, and despite high demand it's still only low percentage of profit compared to cutting edge) I suppose prices must increase but likely there are some long term contracts in place. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJrOuBkYCMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJrOuBkYCMQ

kurthr 4y ago
One other thing that's not mentioned is qualifying the new fabs and porting old designs. Each design (even the old ones) would need to be requalified. That could easily be $Millions for a $0.1 die. Until you've made >>10 million parts (1000s of wafers) you won't be cost competitive even in a converted old depreciated fab... Now add the costs of building a new fab and bringing it on line?! Realistically, I can see building new 28nm 12" fabs and designing new die (for the same purpose) for the smaller geometry, but anything older/larger will just make due with what is available. The ecosystem existed because newer fabs were always taking up the demand slack, while the older lower cost fabs were fully depreciated and didn't take much engineering effort to keep running the same old process.
- ilyt 4y ago
  > Realistically, I can see building new 28nm 12" fabs and designing new die (for the same purpose) for the smaller geometry, but anything older/larger will just make due with what is available. The ecosystem existed because newer fabs were always taking up the demand slack, while the older lower cost fabs were fully depreciated and didn't take much engineering effort to keep running the same old process. Also, power matters. Smaller process means jack shit if the part needs the same amount of current running thru it. Anything analog is harder to shrink (as you care about the detailed parameters of transistors, not just the on/off state, so most likely full redesign), and anything that needs to pass enough current and enough voltage just can't be shrunk in the first place. See your humble 5A linear regulator die shot https://zeptobars.com/en/read/LM338K-5A-LDO-TO-3-TO-220 https://zeptobars.com/en/read/LM338K-5A-LDO-TO-3-TO-220 only the upper part could be shunk, the bottom one, the power transistor, can't be
  - kurthr 4y ago
    Luckily, a lot of the really high power (moderate voltage) stuff is moving to SiC and GaN which is smaller and much higher power density. So there's some reason to hope for new fabs to ease capacity constraints.

by comboy 4y ago

kurthr 4y ago

One other thing that's not mentioned is qualifying the new fabs and porting old designs. Each design (even the old ones) would need to be requalified. That could easily be $Millions for a $0.1 die. Until you've made >>10 million parts (1000s of wafers) you won't be cost competitive even in a converted old depreciated fab... Now add the costs of building a new fab and bringing it on line?! Realistically, I can see building new 28nm 12" fabs and designing new die (for the same purpose) for the smaller geometry, but anything older/larger will just make due with what is available. The ecosystem existed because newer fabs were always taking up the demand slack, while the older lower cost fabs were fully depreciated and didn't take much engineering effort to keep running the same old process.

ilyt 4y ago
> Realistically, I can see building new 28nm 12" fabs and designing new die (for the same purpose) for the smaller geometry, but anything older/larger will just make due with what is available. The ecosystem existed because newer fabs were always taking up the demand slack, while the older lower cost fabs were fully depreciated and didn't take much engineering effort to keep running the same old process. Also, power matters. Smaller process means jack shit if the part needs the same amount of current running thru it. Anything analog is harder to shrink (as you care about the detailed parameters of transistors, not just the on/off state, so most likely full redesign), and anything that needs to pass enough current and enough voltage just can't be shrunk in the first place. See your humble 5A linear regulator die shot https://zeptobars.com/en/read/LM338K-5A-LDO-TO-3-TO-220 https://zeptobars.com/en/read/LM338K-5A-LDO-TO-3-TO-220 only the upper part could be shunk, the bottom one, the power transistor, can't be
- kurthr 4y ago
  Luckily, a lot of the really high power (moderate voltage) stuff is moving to SiC and GaN which is smaller and much higher power density. So there's some reason to hope for new fabs to ease capacity constraints.