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Rapidus to Develop 1nm Process Technology With Leti and the University of Tokyo
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this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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Rapidus was created last year and only started clearing the plot of land to build their first fab in September. Talking about 1nm production is putting the cart before the horse, they aren't expecting their first 2nm node to be in production until 2027. Let's not forget that GloFo had decades of experience, bought IBMs fabs, and had an EUV machine and still called it quits on pursuing the leading edge after years of failing. Intel had numerous issues with 10nm, and TSMC and Samsung are now struggling with 3nm. Point being, talk is cheap and execution is extremely hard in the industry.
I was at GloFlo when it happened. They shut down because of lack of customers and Mubadala did not want to fund another process tech which was not going to bring any profits.
But your point is still valid, even if they did somehow come up with a process recipe, with HVM worthy defect density, meeting their perf targets, they have to get customers. All this will easily take a decade.
How badly do you think the UAE shot itself in the foot by not pursuing cutting edge nodes?
Not badly. Cutting edge development is extremely expensive and there's no guarantee it would have paid off
They talk about production only insofar that production will be possible when they have developed the required technology.
Developing technology that enables production of the next smaller node takes increasingly more time, so starting to develop that technology now is appropriate if you want a chance of having it 10 to 15 years down the road.