From Solid-State Technology:
At the International Semiconductor Strategy Symposium (ISS Europe), the European semiconductor
industry affirmed its ability to innovate. More than 170 top industry
representatives agreed on a number of joint steps and strategic measures
to strengthen their competitiveness and sustainability. The
controversial question whether the best way to attack future challenges
will be "More Moore" or "More than Moore," ended in an expected
compromise, namely that the industry should pursuit both strategies
concurrently, the participants of a panel expressed. Whilst the More
than Moore sector is traditionally strong in Europe, going on with More
Moore is important for two to three device makers in Europe and in
particular for the European equipment suppliers which export 80% of
their products.
In a global scale, the semiconductor industry is approaching the move to 450mm wafer processing
technology – a step that promises to greatly boost the productivity of
semiconductor manufacturers. However, since the investment to build a
450mm fab easily exceeds the 10 billion dollar mark, this move is
regarded as risky and, for this reason, reserved to only the very
largest enterprises. In the past, this perspective divided the European
industry into two camps - the "More Moore" group that advocates taking
on the 450mm challenge, and the "More than Moore" group which shunned
this risky investment and preferred to rely on application-oriented
differentiation instead.
At the event SEMI Europe, an industry association embracing
enterprises that represent the entire value chain and organizer of the
ISS Europe, set up a high-ranking panel discussion on options and
choices of a single European semiconductor strategy. The panel proved
that entrepreneurial spirit is well alive among Europe's chipmakers,
technology suppliers and researchers.
Read more...
No comments:
Post a Comment