4 ms·
I don't fully understand how the masks work, but can smaller players pool together for a mask if they're willing to share a die?
by TOMDM 3y ago
I don't fully understand how the masks work, but can smaller players pool together for a mask if they're willing to share a die?
- lizknope 3y agoYes, it's called a shuttle run but it is normally only done for an initial test chip or a prototype. This says that the 5nm reticle size is 26mm x 33mm https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/3377/tsmc-announces-2x-reticle-cowos-for-next-gen-5nm-hpc-applications/ https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/3377/tsmc-announces-2x-reticl... If you are making a huge chip that is close to the max reticle size then you can't share it with anyone. When I have done shuttle runs they split the reticle into 4x4mm sections and each cost about $100,000 in 28nm. I think the full 28nm mask set was a few million dollars back in 2012 when it was current technology. You could get another size in multiples of 4 like 4x8mm or 8x8mm where you paid another $100K for each 4x4 section. But you can't use these shuttle masks when you are going to full production where you make millions of chips because you would be making chips from other company's next to yours and that company may have had bugs in that mask or only want 100,000 chips while you want a million. The masks are a one time cost (assuming you don't have any bugs which is rare) but that is a huge portion of the NRE (Non Recurring Engineering cost or one time cost)