Intel presented world's first fully patterned 450mm wafer at last week's SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium. No further details were shared by Intel at the event but previous reports indicate the chip... Intel shows first fully patterned 450mm wafer
Beyond the size? It's actually quite a feat to maintain mask alignment at the feature sizes they are using now over a wafer that large. From Semi.org: 450mm fab with a capacity of 40-45k wafer starts per month can produce the same volume of die as a 300mm fab with 100k wafer starts per month
This means Intel can a little more than double their chip production within the same amount of factory space. Main benefits: Can build fewer new factories which cost billions of dollars to setup Can increase profit per employee ratio Can produce more processors to meet demand Faster launches of newer architectures due to higher yields* Reduced cost in manufacturing, perhaps more competitive pricing for consumer *With this one I should explain that when Intel or any chip maker for that matter starts offering a new architecture that they've never built before there are often issues and many of the chips they make (A wafer like pictured in the article can hold hundreds of processors) will not work correctly. By increasing the size of the wafers they will also increase the amount of working processor dies and be able to shorten their initial architecture launch windows. Basically even with damaged dies these new wafers would allow them to have the same volume of working dies that they have now from the previous 300mm wafers on a well established architecture right at the beginning of a new architecture that is fraught with defects.
