Siemens AG and Motorola yesterday said their semiconductor joint venture had reached a milestone, producing the first fully-functional chips on 300mm wafers.
Semiconductor 300, as the joint venture is called, was able to produce the next-generation 64Mbit DRAM chips at its plant in Dresden, Germany, the companies said in a statement.
Making chips on 300mm wafers will let them produce roughly 2.5 times more chips per wafer, the companies said, reducing production costs by about 30 per cent per chip over current 200mm technology. The project is costing more than 1 billion marks ($8.7 million), but Germany's federal and regional governments are helping defray the expenditure by contributing 307 million marks to the venture, the companies said.
The move comes one year after the joint venture was formed. The venture will now focus on developing a 300mm toolset which makes it possible to produce the chips in volume.
Siemens
Phone: (03) 9420 7200
E-mail: Geoff Fagan, Siemens manager of corporate communicationsgeoff.fagen@siemens.com.auhttp://www.siemens.comMotorolaPhone: (02) 9437 8900http://www.motorola.com.au
