silicon wafer manufacturing

[ali_asadzadeh]

Hi,
Assume that I have designed a simple chip, I just wanted to manufacture it,I need 90nm manufacturing capability, where is the cheapest place to order them? what sort of prices should I expect? anyone with the experience would enlighten me very well,
Thanks in advance.

[amyk]

http://cmp.imag.fr/products/ic/?p=prices2016

No 90nm there but you can get an idea of the prices.

Given your location, try http://www.wafercat.com/

[coppice]

http://cmp.imag.fr/products/ic/?p=prices2016

No 90nm there but you can get an idea of the prices.

Given your location, try http://www.wafercat.com/

Its worth noting that although CMP distribute the design kits without charge, they only seem to support Cadence.

[uncle_bob]

Hi,
Assume that I have designed a simple chip, I just wanted to manufacture it,I need 90nm manufacturing capability, where is the cheapest place to order them? what sort of prices should I expect? anyone with the experience would enlighten me very well,
Thanks in advance.

Hi

How many full wafers do you need a week and for how many years?

Do you need them packaged or are bare die ok?

Do you need any testing done? If so what sort of testing (microwave / digital / precision linear)?

What sort of chip is it (digital / linear / RF / optical / ...) ?

What sort of material do you need (silicon ... something fast .... something exotic ...) ?

Do you care about a $250K mask set charge up front (or $1M) ?

Do you care about a $100K test setup charge up front?

Lots of questions, not many answers. The bottom line is always that there are upfront costs. You can always pay them as a lump sum. In some cases they can be folded into that first PO for 20 wafers a week for the next 9 months. If your volumes aren't in the "silly nonsense" range, you can count on that mask set only lasting for just so long. A few years from now, you will get a bill for a new set when the line upgrades. Either you pay the bill or you find somebody else (and pay them a mask charge). Been there / done that a lot of times.

Bob

[coppice]

Do you care about a $250K mask set charge up front (or $1M) ?

He specified 90nm. He's not going to get a mask set for $250k.

[l0wside]

The link to cmp.imag.fr has changed: http://cmp.imag.fr/spip.php?page=article&id_article=61

They do MPW runs, i.e. they put a large number of different designs on a single wafer, which is perfect for prototyping. The smallest feature size they offer is the ST 28nm CMOS process. If you can live with a larger feature size, prices start at a few kEUR for 25 parts.

For mass production, this is not helpful. An IC design is tightly coupled to the IC process (unless it is purely digital). If the TO has thus managed to get his IC up and running with CMP, he will need to negotiate with either AMS or ST to mass produce the IC. This is where the upfront cost comes into play.

Unless you either produce critical high-value components or huge volumes, a discrete solution is usually the cheaper solution.

Max

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Consider that the output of most MPW runs are bare die. Unless you happen to have a wire bonder, the parts will need to get packaged. That's not a massive cost, it is something that may impact performance if the part is running at RF or microwaves ...

Bob

[l0wside]

CMP even has listed packaging cost. Around 70 EUR for SO8, IIRC.
Not clear if this is the price for a single part or the full run of 25 parts.

Max

[mikeselectricstuff]

Just curious - what its it about masks that makes them so expensive  ?

[coppice]

Just curious - what its it about masks that makes them so expensive  ?

Not so long ago mask costs were not so bad. You could set up a run of masked ROM parts for a few thousand dollars, which was mostly the cost of the single mask required. As geometries become finer the prices have gone through the roof. At the finest geometries its pretty expensive to even make the one mask you needed to mask ROM. Minimising mask sets is now a major driver in most fine geometry IC development work. Bugs will often stay in chips just to avoid the cost of a metal layer fix, and if you need an ALR (all levels revision) heads might roll.

A mask needs to be a lot crisper than the things you print from it, and you can't make it by a printing process. It takes a considerable run time on some exotic equipment.

[ali_asadzadeh]

Thanks for the info, I wonder how much money do you need to enter the business?is 1M$ enough? we have lots of fab-less companies, and the question is if the mask prices are so high why on earth they sell 555 so damn cheap! who buys the damn thing now! so I guess the volume shouldn't be that high!

[uncle_bob]

Thanks for the info, I wonder how much money do you need to enter the business?is 1M$ enough? we have lots of fab-less companies, and the question is if the mask prices are so high why on earth they sell 555 so damn cheap! who buys the damn thing now! so I guess the volume shouldn't be that high!

Hi

The volume on 555's probably is pretty low by now. I would guess it's dropped below the 100,000 per day level. Since it is done on an "analog" rather than a digital process, the masks don't go obsolete quite as fast.

Bob

[ion]

Just curious - what its it about masks that makes them so expensive  ?

I read some time ago that for the finer processes they generate interference patterns to expose features smaller than the UV wavelength.  I'd imagine getting masks to do that right isn't easy.

[MT]

Thanks for the info, I wonder how much money do you need to enter the business?is 1M$ enough? we have lots of fab-less companies, and the question is if the mask prices are so high why on earth they sell 555 so damn cheap! who buys the damn thing now! so I guess the volume shouldn't be that high!

Hi
The volume on 555's probably is pretty low by now. I would guess it's dropped below the 100,000 per day level. Since it is done on an "analog" rather than a digital process, the masks don't go obsolete quite as fast.
Bob

Lot of IC' comes from NOS wafer stocks, particularly old analog designs and cmos logic.
Just go backwards and ask for processes used when they was obsoleted.

[uncle_bob]

Thanks for the info, I wonder how much money do you need to enter the business?is 1M$ enough? we have lots of fab-less companies, and the question is if the mask prices are so high why on earth they sell 555 so damn cheap! who buys the damn thing now! so I guess the volume shouldn't be that high!

Hi
The volume on 555's probably is pretty low by now. I would guess it's dropped below the 100,000 per day level. Since it is done on an "analog" rather than a digital process, the masks don't go obsolete quite as fast.
Bob

Lot of IC' comes from NOS wafer stocks, particularly old analog designs and cmos logic.
Just go backwards and ask for processes used when they was obsoleted.

Hi

At some point the answer will be "we no longer support that process, all the equipment has been scrapped" ... I've gotten a number of those messages over the years.

Bob

[edavid]

Just curious - what its it about masks that makes them so expensive  ?

Mostly the cost of mask making machines, although the ultra pure materials used are not cheap.

Also, they have to be perfect, so the yield isn't that high.

[CatalinaWOW]

Thanks for the info, I wonder how much money do you need to enter the business?is 1M$ enough? we have lots of fab-less companies, and the question is if the mask prices are so high why on earth they sell 555 so damn cheap! who buys the damn thing now! so I guess the volume shouldn't be that high!

In addition to the other answers above, realize that the feature size on a 555 is orders of magnitude larger than you are requesting, making masks easy and robust.  Large volume market, low die size, large feature size so high yield, low pin count....  Everything about the 555 makes it cheap to build.  If your part shares many of these features it may also sell cheap and still sell at a profit. 

[uncle_bob]

Thanks for the info, I wonder how much money do you need to enter the business?is 1M$ enough? we have lots of fab-less companies, and the question is if the mask prices are so high why on earth they sell 555 so damn cheap! who buys the damn thing now! so I guess the volume shouldn't be that high!

In addition to the other answers above, realize that the feature size on a 555 is orders of magnitude larger than you are requesting, making masks easy and robust.  Large volume market, low die size, large feature size so high yield, low pin count....  Everything about the 555 makes it cheap to build.  If your part shares many of these features it may also sell cheap and still sell at a profit.

Hi

Well you would *think* it would work that way. Oddly enough ... not so much. If you take a design at (say) 1 micron an run it on a process that is 8X higher resolution, you get to make masks for the 8X process. That comes with the normal price tag on the 8X higher resolution process masks. Indeed there are a bucketful of things that change other than the resolution that pretty much force this to happen. If it was just going to 8X resolution on the same old 3" wafers done with the same old handling gear, the impact might not be as great.

Bob

[CatalinaWOW]

I haven't done this for a few years so my info may be out of date, but at that time older processes didn't really go away.  They disappeared into secondary markets.  So you frequently can get older stuff.  Not as cheap as it once was, but still better than bleeding edge stuff.

[uncle_bob]

I haven't done this for a few years so my info may be out of date, but at that time older processes didn't really go away.  They disappeared into secondary markets.  So you frequently can get older stuff.  Not as cheap as it once was, but still better than bleeding edge stuff.

Hi

At least on the stuff we have done, when you move fab's, the masks didn't move. You paid a new mask charge for the new line. You might not have to do a full up design to drive those masks, but you still shoot new ones.

Bob

[coppice]

I haven't done this for a few years so my info may be out of date, but at that time older processes didn't really go away.  They disappeared into secondary markets.  So you frequently can get older stuff.  Not as cheap as it once was, but still better than bleeding edge stuff.

Hi

At least on the stuff we have done, when you move fab's, the masks didn't move. You paid a new mask charge for the new line. You might not have to do a full up design to drive those masks, but you still shoot new ones.

Bob

Semiconductor production equipment comes from a very small group of suppliers. You'd think there would only be a couple of forms in which the masks are needed, but it doesn't seem to work out like that. Moving fabs generally requires a new mask set. It also requires requalification of the parts, because of processing differences between fabs, but I think most people would expect that.

[uncle_bob]

I haven't done this for a few years so my info may be out of date, but at that time older processes didn't really go away.  They disappeared into secondary markets.  So you frequently can get older stuff.  Not as cheap as it once was, but still better than bleeding edge stuff.

Hi

At least on the stuff we have done, when you move fab's, the masks didn't move. You paid a new mask charge for the new line. You might not have to do a full up design to drive those masks, but you still shoot new ones.

Bob

Semiconductor production equipment comes from a very small group of suppliers. You'd think there would only be a couple of forms in which the masks are needed, but it doesn't seem to work out like that. Moving fabs generally requires a new mask set. It also requires requalification of the parts, because of processing differences between fabs, but I think most people would expect that.

Hi

There is also the sneaky "they cost X if we own the masks and Y if you own the masks". Guess which one the finance guy wants you to pick when you order the masks? If the fab owns the masks ... there is no way you are going to move them (even if you could which I've never been able to do).

Bob

[lgbeno]

Have you looked at Mosis?  You need to get your chip on a MPW or "Shuttle". Then the mask costs are shared between many die on a reticle.  The cost might be $30k (total swag).

There are two reasons why chips are cheap, the first is process cost, older technology tends to be cheaper because the equipment is paid off, the process yields well and it probably isn't in as high of demand.

The other reason can be that they can just cram so many devices onto a single die, imagine paying $800 to process a wafer and having it give you 10,000 chips.  At 100% yield that is 8cents a chip.  Of course that never happens and there are other costs besides silicon but you get what I'm saying.

BTW, $1M would for sure get you proto silicon at 90nm, it might not get you into production.  Depends on what the chip does.


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[ali_asadzadeh]

Thanks for the info, then the next question is how to enter the business with 1M$, for example what was the strategy of XMOS or other recent companies! I heard that they have started with a similar budget.

[coppice]

Thanks for the info, then the next question is how to enter the business with 1M$, for example what was the strategy of XMOS or other recent companies! I heard that they have started with a similar budget.

XMOS and others didn't enter with 1M$. 1M$ is just the cost of making sample chips with dedicated (rather than mutli-project type shuttle) masks. Designing anything of moderate complexity is a few million more in salary, software licencing, and all the other costs associated with a multi-man year engineering development.