Applied is making its announcement at the start of Semicon West, the chip-gear industry's big trade show that kicks off today in San Francisco and moves to San Jose, Calif., later in the week. It's not the first time Applied and others have tried to move the industry to the larger wafers. Applied has been working on the technology since the early 1990s and thought the industry was going to bite in the mid-1990s, only to find out no one would pay up. In the past they were not willing to commit to buy.
Money is the driving factor behind the move.
Billat said the new tools will cost chipmakers between 30 percent and 40 percent more than the gear needed for 200-millimeter wafers, but they will deliver roughly 2.5 times as many chips. But there is an edge effect because chips are square and wafers are round, meaning the larger wafers are even more efficient. They have a pretty good market share in foundries. Applied said its tools will cover about three-quarters of the steps needed to make chips using the larger wafers. Billat said the big hole in the company's lineup is lithography.