Infineon Announces 300 mm Thin Wafers

Infineon says it is the first company to have successfully produced chips on 300 mm thin wafers, which will be used for high-voltage semiconductors.

According to the manufacturer, these Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors (MOSFETs) offer the same behavior as those previously manufactured on 200 mm wafers (in diameter, not thickness), but will enable the company to produce the chips much more efficiently.

“Our engineers’ achievement marks a quantum leap in production technology,” said Reinhard Ploss, Operations, Research & Development and Labor Director at Infineon Technologies. “Innovation lays the foundation for profitable growth. Innovation secures our edge over the competition.”

300 mm wafers have been used for common chips such as CPUs for more than a decade, but certain individual segments still rely on 200 mm technology as the production volume does not justify a switch to the more expensive 300 mm technology.

However, Infineon had the advantage of already having a 300mm production plant; the thin wafers are produced in the former Qimonda DRAM plant in Villach, Austria.