Intel begins 300mm Oregon fab

Electronic News, Feb 23, 1998 by Dylan McGrath

Hillsboro, Ore.--The semiconductor world moved closer to the era of 300mm wafers last week as the world's largest merchant semiconductor company, Intel, confirmed it is building its first 300mm fab here. In a separate development, Siemens and Motorola's partnership, dubbed Semiconductor 300, began ordering equipment for its facility---generally considered to be the industry's first 300mm production fab.

Intel said it is in the second phase of development on a 300mm advanced logic fab at its multiphase site development project, Ronler Acres, in Hillsboro. When completed in the year 2000, the plant is expected to carry a price tag of more than $1.5 billion to construct and to feature a 120,000 square-foot, Class 1 cleanroom.

Intel's plan calls for the company's Portland Technology Development (PTD) operation to develop Intel's 300mm wafer processes at this facility. The plant will also be used to development technologies for the 0.13-micron generation and beyond. Once the engineers from PTD have developed a set of processes, they will be responsible for ramping the fab into volume production.

"Our researchers that develop the technology are the ones that have to ramp it up, the idea being that you won't toss as many rocks in the backpack if you're the one that has to carry it," said Howard High, a corporate spokesman for Intel. Mr. High said when specialized researchers responsible only for developing technology pass it off to another team charged with ramping up a fab, they leave kinks in the process for the new team to work out.

Responsibility

Intel's philosophy, he said, is to make the same people who are responsible for developing the technology also responsible for ramping the fab so that things go as smoothly as possible. Once the PTD researchers have developed a process, it will be incorporated in all Intel's forthcoming 300mm fabs as part of the company's "copy exactly" manufacturing philosophy.

"This facility will help us maintain our leadership in the extremely competitive world of semiconductors," commented Craig Barrett, Intel president and CEO. "This project signifies Intel's continued investment in semiconductor chip development and manufacturing facilities as we prepare for the future."

Reports that Intel was on the verge of announcing the 300mm facility at Ronler Acres have been quietly circulating through the semiconductor industry for weeks (EN, Feb. 9). In 1994, Intel announced plans to build multiple manufacturing and development facilities here at Ronler Acres.

While Intel finally let the cat out of the bag regarding its 300mm development site, the joint venture (JV) between Siemens and Motorola announced last month (EN, Jan. 19), placed a significant order for 300mm tools with Applied Materials for Semiconductor 300.

Specific details of the equipment ordered--including the price--were not disclosed, but Applied said the order includes plasma etch, chemical vapor deposition (CVD), physical vapor deposition (PVD) and high temperature film products, as well as wafer inspection and CD-SEM equipment. Semiconductor 300 will reportedly begin producing 64-megabit DRAM devices with 0.25-micron design rules in Dresden early next year as a manufacturing warm-up for the 256Mb devices it eventually plans to build there.