Though Intel may want to move to the 450mm wafer size ten years after the adoption of 300mm wafers, it's impossible to find any equipment company executive prepared to put any toes in the water and commit to the large scale expenditure to develop the processing tools to handle the larger wafers.

Mike Splinter of Applied Materials has regularly been asked in conference calls with financial analysts whether the company will commit to 450mm and the response has been clear in the sense that he is sitting on the fence quite nicely. Other executives from Lam Research to Varian Semiconductor have all acknowledged that feasibility studies have begun but all have preferred to avoid directly coming out either in favour or not of the wafer size migration.

Just before the mayhem of Semicon West 06 last week, I had the opportunity to sit down with Sass Somekh, President of Novellus Systems for the first time since joining the company from Applied Materials, two years ago. Although we ran through a whole host of topics related to Novellus we also touched on the 450mm wafer issue.

Not surprisingly he made a very good point about semiconductor equipment companies positioning on the larger wafer size that summed up the situation. Basically it doesn't matter too much whether there is a group of tool vendors opposed to the migration or not rather it really depends on Applied Materials coming out and declaring support for the move. If that happens then the rest of the leading edge tool vendors will have to follow that decision to remain in the mainstream markets.

With the leadership position Applied Materials has, Intel Corp would be very reluctant to attempt the shift without Applied on-board.

I have to agree with Sass on this one as it makes perfect sense. It also helps me to stop asking other leading tool vendors their position on 450mm wafers as the only person we need to continually ask is Mike Splinter!

Of course we all know that Mike came to Applied from Intel but I wouldn't bet on the obvious in this case. Investment analysts have been quizzing Applied all year on this issue and I get the feeling they would put a serious black mark against AMAT's stock should the company confirm it would spend the necessary $ billions in RD&E to meet the 450mm transition needs. Importantly for the investment community they know that the ROI would be so forward looking that the black mark would remain for many years to come. Considering the financial community operates on a quarter by quarter basis and only one year outlook this might be the biggest hurdle to Applied ever agreeing to the that kind of forward investment.

Rightly, SEMATECH is going to approach the major tool vendors and discuss the issues surrounding the possible wafer size migration as part of its study work but perhaps it should also talk to the investor community as well as they may be more central to any transition than people currently believe.

Mike, like many other tool vendor executives may hope that they have retired before a definitive decision has to be made on this issue but of course the successors will not have that option and AMAT's next boss will have this big issue land on his/her lap the day they take office. Now who wants that job?