For Integral and all forum members - semiconductors industries

[iii]

Hello Integral and all the forum members,
Before approximate 8 months I read that some big companies begin to invest a lot of money in change the wafer size from 300 millimeters diameter to 450 millimeters diameter, in these days one friend tell me that he hear that all the industries in semiconductors stop all these processes and all the semiconductors industries will stay with wafers that have 300 millimeters diameters, because I am not sure that it is true and I don't understand what happen so I try to find in google some articles that will confirm it or disprove and will give information and details for these two options (confirmation or disprove) like:
1. If it was stop so why the semiconductors industries stop to the research and development to move from 300 millimeters diameter wafers to 450 millimeters diameter wafers?
2. If it was not stop so what are the advantage and disadvantages from moving from 300 millimeters diameter wafers to 450 millimeters diameter wafers?

 

[Baluncore]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafer_(electronics)

The issue of wafer size is an economic one. Increasing wafer size requires equipment to be replaced with larger equipment. It is better to keep running the old plant while building another plant. The economy is not strong, so manufacturers are probably waiting until they need to build a new fabrication plant, with new larger equipment. The manufacturers of the larger equipment will also be waiting for demand before building the next generation equipment.

Why bigger wafers? The number of steps and the process time will remain the same, but the number of chips produced will be higher per wafer. 300 to 450 gives 2.25 times the wafer area.

If you are not in the industry then the wafer size is quite irrelevant to you. There will always be rumours about an industry, if you follow 1% of them, you will be wasting your lifetime.

 

[nsaspook]

This gives some of the reasons for the 450mm pause.
http://450mm.com/blog/2013/12/19/diminishing-case-for-450mm/
http://semiengineering.com/is-450mm-dead-in-the-water/