On March 24, 2008, the EU and Taiwan held a joint workshop on 450mm. The presentation abstracts for the event are available, as well as the full presentations for many of the topics. On item of interest is the attendee list – mostly universities and labs and few equipment manufacturers. Clearly, universities won’t be building the equipment needed for a $10B, 450mm factory. And governments alone can’t fund the estimated $30B needed for R&D. And while R&D, perhaps even some at the university level, needs to take place, no one should assume that existing OEMs haven’t already developed significant 450mm IP. The markets will ultimately decide if and when 450mm happens. With the capital equipment market sales being as low as $18B this year, and growth rates for semiconductors in general being on the order of 5-7% long term, investors are, in general staying away from the semiconductor industry. Likewise, governments need to think carefully about major investments into a high-risk, new wafer size under such uncertain conditions.
