Dresden fab could host 20-nm process, 450-mm wafers

Peter Clarke, EETimes
6/18/2012 11:42 AM EDT

DRESDEN, Germany – Fab 1, the 300-mm operation of GlobalFoundries Inc. here, could be used for 20-nm process technology and for processing 450-mm wafers, according to, Rutger Wijburg, vice president and Fab 1 general manager. Wijburg was speaking to a group of journalists being given a tour of the Dresden wafer fab on Friday, June 15.

Fab 1 is Europe's largest and most advanced wafer fab but it is about to get eclipsed in GlobalFoundries' portfolio by a wafer fab being brought online in Malta, New York, which will run 20-nm process technology on 300-mm wafers. Meanwhile Fab 1 is itself in the middle of a $3 billion upgrade that will take its manufacturing capacity to 80,000 300-mm wafer starts per month or 1 million wafer starts per year. That influx of equipment into a 12,000 square foot clean room known as the annex, was begun in mid-2011 is due to continue on an "as needed' basis until 2014.

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