Relationship between the 200-mm wafer size and the sub micron technologies

The trend of increasing the wafer size towards 200-mm is driven by the reduction of the high-volume production cost of large circuits. At the same time, the compatibility with deep submicron processes should be preserved. This dictates tight specifications on the bare substrate itself (e.g. flatness) and on the process equipments, some of which being discussed here. Moreover the increased size and cost of the wafers need to reconsider usual ways in the development of processes and in the manufacturing rules. This later subject will be outlined in the second part of this paper.