Minifab key to low-cost chip production

摘要

We have a concrete plan for a new kind of semiconductor fab that can effi-ciently produce small runs of many different types of system chips. With this new agile minifab approach, a chipmaker could turn a profit with a facilities investment of only $83 million (￥10 billion), a tenth the $830 million (￥100 billion) investment now required to build sufficient conventional fab capacity to break even. The agile minifab would drastically cut both production cost and turnaround time for low-volume system chips, and allow flexible response to changes in the market as well.