(Japanese Site)
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| NEC Starts Plant for 0.07-0.18-Micron Microchip Tech
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July 9, 1998 (TOKYO) -- NEC Corp. announced it started operation of
its UC Plant, a stronghold for research, development and pilot
production of 0.07-micron to 0.18-micron process technology.
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It held an inspection tour of the facilities for the press on July 3.
The new operation is located in NEC's Sagamihara plant, Kanagawa
Prefecture. NEC will invest 200 billion yen (US$1.4 billion) in it
over the 10 years starting with the ground breaking in January 1996
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The UC Plant is a six-story high building with a total floor space
of 25,000 square meters, including clean rooms that stretch for
three floors and have 6,500 square meters each.
For the first stage of the UC Plant project, the company invested 50
billion yen (US$350 million) in the UC6 line, which started
operations on the sixth floor. Although the line has a monthly
production capacity of 5,000 wafers (200mm, it started producing 3,
000 wafers per month at present.
Keiichi Shimakura, NEC senior vice president, said at a press
conference that NEC will use the UC Plant as a stronghold to
support its business in the 21st century.
Susumu Sato, assistant general manager of the firm's VLSI
Manufacturing Engineering Division, said that the UC6 line will
work to achieve three goals: it will shorten the turn-around time
needed to pilot products, it will save energy and alleviate the
burden on the environment and it will technically support the
company's other mass-production lines.
Both development and pilot production activities of the UC6 line are
fulfilled on the same floor to assure the speedy transfer of
technology and shorten the turn-around time.
The line also has a configuration that enables the company to reduce
perfluorocarbon for energy saving and alleviate the burden on the
environment. The electric power needed for air conditioning has
been reduced by 25-40 percent.
The line has partially installed manufacturing equipment for 300mm
wafers to make assessments that would support the mass-production
lines technically in the near future.
Osamu Kudoh, general manager of ULSI Device Development Laboratories
, unveiled its future R&D; plans using the UC6.
The design rules to be adopted for logic IC chips will become
smaller year by year. NEC will start mass-production of logic IC
chips using a 0.18-micron design rule in early 1999. One year after
, in early 2000, the company will start mass production of logic IC
chips with 0.15-micron process technology. Also in early 2001, NEC
will start mass production of logic IC chips using a 0.13-micron
design rule.
For DRAMs, the development of 265Mb DRAM chips will be completed
this year and mass production will be started in early 1999. Sample
shipments of 1Gb DRAM chips will start in early 1999 and mass
production will start as early as mid-2001. Sample shipments of 4Gb
DRAM chips will start in mid-2001.
KrF excimer laser steppers will be used for lithography of a 0.15
-micron design rule. However, the development of ArF excimer laser
steppers with reasonable prices will be urgently needed to realize
the 0.13-micron process technology since KrF laser might not be
able to handle this level of precision technology, Kudoh said.
More information is in English at: http://.nec.co.jp/english
/today/newsrel/9807/0301.html
(Nikkei Microdevices)
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