450mm Wafers coming.
X-Bit labs report
I can only imagine how expensive this transition will be. I'd expect only the largest foundries to attempt the transition. 450mm wafer representing a %50 increase in size would benefit the Intels and IBMs out there as long as they can crank out chips. Keep in mind they're talking about 2012 I imagine we'll be at 45nm or less by then. A 450mm wafer is going to crank out a lot of chips.
Quote:
?We think 2012 would be the year for the 450mm wafers, so we need to start discussing it pretty soon, in the next six months. We need to start planning,? said Paolo Gargini, the Intel Corp. director of technology strategy who serves as the chairman of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) at Semicon West in San Francisco, California, EETimes reports.
?We think 2012 would be the year for the 450mm wafers, so we need to start discussing it pretty soon, in the next six months. We need to start planning,? said Paolo Gargini, the Intel Corp. director of technology strategy who serves as the chairman of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) at Semicon West in San Francisco, California, EETimes reports.
I can only imagine how expensive this transition will be. I'd expect only the largest foundries to attempt the transition. 450mm wafer representing a %50 increase in size would benefit the Intels and IBMs out there as long as they can crank out chips. Keep in mind they're talking about 2012 I imagine we'll be at 45nm or less by then. A 450mm wafer is going to crank out a lot of chips.
Comments
Originally posted by Powerdoc
2012.I can't even imagine, what computer will we have.
Hmmmmmm
2012
Powermac X
8 core CPU 20ghz per core
16GB quad core GPU on starlink(2 Terabyte throughput)
80" OLED display
18GB of RAM(400GBps) dammit Apple being cheap again
Blu Ray+ 4 layer optical(100GB per layer)
4 Terabyte HD on Magibus link(fictional but 1200MBps)
System is on 6GB non-volatile memory
24/bit 192Khz Digital I/O
Wifi 88g(range of 500ft 200MBps throughput)
God how am I going to tell my son my first Mac was 16mhz LC without getting laughed out the house?
Originally posted by hmurchison
450mm wafer representing a %50 increase in size would benefit the Intels and IBMs out there as long as they can crank out chips.
It's actually a 125% increase in area. The wafers are circular and that size is their diameter.
Originally posted by hmurchison
God how am I going to tell my son my first Mac was 16mhz LC without getting laughed out the house?
The same way I'll have to handle showing my son what a floppy disk is, and explaining to him that at the time, 1.4 MB was huge. Then I'll really fry his brain by showing him the original Mac that I have. He might look at me a little confused when I say to him it runs at 7.2 MHz (I think).
Originally posted by Telomar
It's actually a 125% increase in area. The wafers are circular and that size is their diameter.
Holy smokes you're right. But wouldn't it be %150 increase? A=pi*radius^2
These are going to be really expensive fabs.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Holy smokes you're right. But wouldn't it be %150 increase? A=pi*radius^2
These are going to be really expensive fabs.
It's (3^2)/(2^2) = 9/4 = 2,25 more surface.
80" OLED display
Why on earth would you want such a beast? a 20" Cinema Display would be much better... at 600dpi.
Originally posted by Gamblor
Why on earth would you want such a beast? a 20" Cinema Display would be much better... at 600dpi.
With scalable UI it'll be easy to view at any size. OLED or technology like it will be ultra thin. Tack it up on the wall and badda-bing you're all set!
Originally posted by Mike Eggleston
The same way I'll have to handle showing my son what a floppy disk is, and explaining to him that at the time, 1.4 MB was huge. Then I'll really fry his brain by showing him the original Mac that I have. He might look at me a little confused when I say to him it runs at 7.2 MHz (I think).
What happened to 400KB floppies and the 8MHz Mac Plus. 25MB HD cost $300.
The prizes in cereal boxes will be able to run rings around that old machine by 2012.
Originally posted by Amorph
I'm definitely going to have to find and preserve my first computer: a Timex/Sinclair 1000. 2K of RAM, baybee!
The prizes in cereal boxes will be able to run rings around that old machine by 2012.
I am ready to bet that you will not have to wait for 2012 for that one
Originally posted by kenaustus
In my first computer class in college they passed around memory - in a cup. It was little magnetic disks that were hand wired. The university did have a hard drive on their computer - 10 megs that cost $100K. Today is the future for old farts like me.
The computer I used at my first job was a minicomputer with 16k words of core memory (iron cores). I took it out of that machine, wrote a simple assembler in hex then wrote a small interpreter. The I/O was a hex keypad I built and and a teletype printer. Storage was on paper tape.
I can't even imagine 450mm wafers. We're struggling with 300mm wafers now. Of course, I understand they have to write the road map. Whether it will ever come to pass or not is another matter.