|
Congrats to Spansion on 300-mm transition, now cut the hype |
|
|
|
Feb 01, 2007 at 03:16 PM |
Just saw Spansion's news about finishing the transition from 200 mm to 300 mm at the flash manufacturer's Submicron Development Center in Sunnyvale.
Congrats to the former AMDers, especially since it's rare to see the term "300 mm" used in conjunction with a chipmaking facility in Silicon Valley.
But Spansion went a bit too far in boasting that its newly upgraded site is the "only 300-mm R&D facility in California" and "the only California company that has 300-mm flash memory in development."
The Silicon Valley Technology Center, soon to change hands from Cypress Semi to a private equity group, has had 300-mm R&D capability for a couple of years. Although more strictly process integration than R&D facilities, both Applied Materials' Maydan Technology Center and Novellus's Customer Integration Center perform at least a bit of the "D" in R&D, with Applied doing a bit of "R" too. OK, they may be equipment suppliers, but they still have significant 300-mm capabilities---and have had said capabilites well before Spansion started schlepping medium-pizza-sized silicon through SDC.Â
Then there's Intel, the elephant in the room for both AMD and its Spansion spinoff, which has a 49% stake in IM Flash, Intel's NAND joint venture with Micron. Last time I checked Intel was a California company even if IM may not strictly be one. Since IM is already running NAND chips out of Micron's Manassas, VA, 300-mm fab, Spansion can't really make that other "we're the only...." claim either. Â
Good luck, Spansion, as you enter the 300-mm age, but please, try and curb your enthusiasm and check your facts next time. Â
|
Blogs 
