Xilinx leads the industry in 300 mm wafers and 90 nm process technologies.

Xilinx is aggressively driving down costs for its customers, especially in the area of 90 nm process technology and 300 mm wafer manufacturing.

The industry leader in PLD (programmable logic device) process technology since the introduction of its Virtex™-E and Virtex-EM FPGA families in 1999, Xilinx was already well ahead of the Semiconductor Industry Association’s process roadmap. And we’ve maintained that lead by more than a year ever since.

Our successful strategy includes partnerships with two world-class fabrication partners: IBM™ in the United States and UMC™ in Taiwan. Both companies are experts in process technology and manufacturing. They have allowed Xilinx to be the first PLD manufacturer to deliver products based on 300 mm wafers and, more recently, 90 nm process technology.

Advantages Beyond Wafer-Thin
Larger 300 mm wafers are imperative for lowering costs. With almost twice the usable wafer area and approximately 2.5 times the number of die per wafer, cost savings of 30% to 40% over 200 mm wafers are typical. According to Glen Yeung of the investment firm Salomon Smith Barney, “[These] 300 mm facilities are the wave of the future. For both chip and equipment companies, the move is an economic imperative.” The semiconductor industry has been successful in the use of “copy exact,” which makes it effective to transition a product from one fabrication line to another. However, when moving from 200 mm wafers to 300 mm wafers, copy exact does not exist. This leaves the door open for process and equipment variabilities that can affect yield.

“We would expect a significant investment to convert an existing product from 200 mm to 300 mm wafers,” said Jim Feldhan, president of Semico Research Corp.

Re-Qualification Headaches
Designers must always consider a re-qualification when a device moves from 200 mm to 300 mm wafer manufacturing. These re-qualification efforts can include:

• Review of the process change notice (PCN) by the designer
• Assembling test boards
• Re-characterization of boards
• Full systems review, including evaluation of thermal stress and high/low voltage testing.

Xilinx: At the Cutting Edge
Xilinx moved established products, such as the Spartan™-IIE and Virtex-II FPGA families, to 300 mm wafers last year. Xilinx has also chosen to release its Virtex-II Pro™ and Spartan-3 FPGA families directly on 300 mm wafers, saving customers from performing a system re-qualification later on.

We realized that to deliver the maxi-mum cost benefit to our customers, it would be necessary to avoid requiring companies to re-qualify a product in their systems when moving from 200 mm to 300 mm wafers. Therefore, we have done the re-qualification for them.

Cheaper Solutions in 90 nm
The use of the latest 90 nm process technology can also have a profound impact on cost. With half the die size for an equivalent circuit on 130 nm technology, 90 nm technology is rapidly becoming the choice of industry leaders as they strive to reduce costs for their customers.

As Dan Hutcheson of VLSI Research Inc points out, “Companies that get into 90 nm production first will get a tremendous advantage in lower cost. Rivals who are late in [adopting] 90 nm process technology will fall behind and may not be able to catch up.”

When the die size advantage of 90 nm process technology is combined with the manufacturing efficiency of 300 mm wafers, the savings of a combined 90 nm/300 mm solution is a 5X increase in gross die per wafer when compared to 130 nm technology on 200 mm wafers.

These cost savings – the largest in recent semiconductor history – could result in pricing of under $20 for one million system gates in 2004, which would be a seven-fold cost decrease from the year 2000.

Conclusion
Not all companies have the resources to develop such advanced technology, but as leaders in their respective industries, Intel™, IBM™, Texas Instruments™, and Xilinx are all adopting – and adapting to – the latest 90 nm/300 mm process technologies. Our customers will be the first to realize the tremendous cost benefits this new technology can deliver.

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