At this time, when the person in charge of the wafer fab faced Lin Chen's questioning words, he thought for a moment, and then slowly replied:
"The current purity of our wafers is 99.999%, which can barely meet the supply of 130-nanometer chip production."
Is it just three nines of purity? Lin Chen nodded to show that he knew.
In the previous life of Daxia, the purity of electronic-grade polysilicon, that is, the purity of wafers, could already reach the level of nine nines.
At this time, it is a pity that the purity of the wafers in this wafer factory can only reach three nines. It is no wonder that the 130 nanometer yield rate of this chip factory is so low and so difficult to improve.
After all, the foundation determines the upper limit. The higher the purity of the wafer, the better the foundation is, making it easier and more stable when building a house.
At this time, the purity of the wafers in this fab is only three nines. It is naturally difficult to improve the yield rate, just like building a house on a slag foundation.
There are more than 1,000 procedures in chip production, and each link affects the yield rate a little. How can the yield rate of the final chip be not bad?
At this time, Lin Chen had clearly understood why it was so difficult to improve the yield rate of 130 nanometers.
We also understand why the yield rate of 180 nanometer and 350 nanometer, which can be mass-produced in large quantities, is so low, only about 80%.
It is estimated that a large part of the problem is due to the low purity of the wafer.
Considering that it has only been a few years since the factory was built and put into production, Lin Chen also expressed his understanding that the purity of 8-inch wafers is so low. After all, improving the purity of wafers is not something that can be achieved overnight.
In this regard, the person in charge of the fab on the other side did not finish his words. After he finished talking about purity, he continued to talk about other data.
"Currently, our fab's monthly production capacity can reach 70,000 pieces per month, and the yield rate can reach 97%."
"The monthly output is 70,000 pieces? The yield rate is only 97%."
Lin Chen murmured these words and frowned slightly.
These two figures are actually not good-sounding figures. First of all, the monthly output of 70,000 pieces may seem like a lot, but it is actually nothing.
If all these 70,000 wafers are used to produce 130nm MCU microcontrollers, based on the tiny size of the MCU microcontrollers.
Depending on the performance requirements and size requirements, they can produce about 1,000 to 10,000 chips, and the difference in the number of cut outs is quite large.
Among them, if the design requirements of high-performance MCU are followed, the chip size of the MCU microcontroller will naturally increase inevitably.
Therefore, based on the minimum 1,000 units, if the yield rate can reach 99.99%, approximately 70 million high-performance microcontroller chips can be produced per month.
The monthly production of 70 million MCU microcontroller chips is theoretically a lot, but if it is used to produce mobile phone chips, it is impossible to produce 70 million mobile phones.
Because many mobile phone chips are much larger than MCU microcontroller chips, and there are many things on mobile phones that need to use chips.
Not to mention the smartphones of previous generations, today’s feature phones alone have dozens of small chips, large and small.
In addition, there are larger mobile phone CPU chips and mobile phone GPU chips, mobile phone communication chips, running memory chips, flash memory chips...
At this time, if Sugon Technology's monthly production capacity of 70,000 wafers is used to make mobile phones, Sugon Technology can actually only supply about a few million to 20 million mobile phones per month.
Of course, the specific number cannot be given in detail at present, and it needs statistical verification by a dedicated person. Moreover, the number of mobile phones that can be manufactured is different depending on the yield rate.
The second most troublesome data is that the yield rate of wafers is only 97%.
The yield rate is only 97%, which means that three out of 100 wafers are defective and need to be eliminated and wasted. This is simply a heartache.
In the previous generation, 8-inch wafer fabs generally had a yield rate of 99%, which meant that only one wafer out of 100 would be wasted. However, the yield rate at this time is only 97%, which is simply too bad.
After all, in this era, the market price of each wafer is about a few hundred dollars. If these three wafers are gone, it will be equivalent to a thousand and several hundred dollars.
However, despite being in a bad mood at this time, Lin Chen did not say anything. Instead, he carefully observed the wafer factory and then quickly went to inspect other chip factories.
For example, we inspected the 350-nanometer chip production line and the 180-nanometer chip production line, and finally inspected the most deserted 130-nanometer chip production line.
The three chip production lines have their own independent production workshops, and trees are planted at a distance from each other to prevent vibrations in their respective factories from affecting the chip yield.
After that, Lin Chen went to inspect the chip packaging and testing workshops. After the entire inspection process, Lin Chen found that he had indeed purchased a relatively complete chip factory.
Although every production factory has more or less backbones or first and second leaders poached, those who remain can still barely support the production and operation of the factory.
In response to this, Lin Chen was relieved but also gritted his teeth in anger at Motorola's despicable little behavior.
Of course, those who are gnashing their teeth in anger also include fellow Asian chip foundries such as Zhongxin International, TSMC Stores, and Sanxing Electronics.
After all, if Motorola just approved the resignation of those people, let those people be poached and then exploit Sugon Technology.
Chip foundry colleagues such as Zhongxin International, TSMC, and Sanxing Electronics are the culprits poaching people behind the scenes.
However, no matter how angry Lin Chen was at this moment, he was gritting his teeth and there was nothing he could do. Under this anger, Lin Chen's fighting spirit became even higher.
Don’t they think that Sugon Technology will be unable to produce chips after poaching many backbones and first and second leaders?
Then Lin Chen had to prove to them that even if many talents were poached, Sugon Technology was still good, and even better than before!
During this time, Lin Chen planned to focus on the chip factory. Lin Chen needed to improve the yield rate of the chips.
It is not only necessary to improve the yield rate of 130-nanometer chips, but also to improve the yield rate of 180-nanometer and 350-nanometer processes.
After all, in the final analysis, the more advanced the chip is, the better. The more advanced it means, the more expensive and niche it is.
On the contrary, the one with the right cost and performance is most suitable for the public and the most popular, so that it can sell more and be used by more people.
180nm and 350nm are undoubtedly backward process technologies, but they are actually the most popular manufacturing processes.
If the yield rate can reach over 99.9%, then the two processes of Guanggao can still make a lot of money.
After all, if the yield rate reaches 80%, it can already make a small profit. If Sugon Technology can increase the yield rate to 99.99%.
Then just make money by manufacturing 180nm and 350nm chips for others, or by designing some MCU microcontroller chips or other chips yourself and selling them.
By relying solely on the sales of 180nm and 350nm OEM chips and independent chips, it may be able to support the chip factory on its own and support the cost of improving the 130nm yield rate.
(End of chapter)
