It was back in early 2002, when executives from Infineon Technologies" memory Division and Nanya Technologies were discussing possible cooperation models between both companies. It soon became clear, that a development as well as a manufacturing cooperation made a lot of sense, since both companies were using the trench technology for their DRAMs. In addition to joining forces in the development of new DRAM technology generations, it was also decided to set up a joint venture company to produce the results of these developments in high volume on wafers with a diameter of 300mm.
After all the contracts and agreements had been worked out and signed, construction of the fabrication site of the joint venture named Inotera Memories, Inc. was started in the second half of 2002. By the end of 2003, the clean room was ready and the first equipment was moved in and connected to power, gas and exhaust lies. With a complete set of equipment connected by mid February 2004, the first wafers were started and processed. These first wafers already showed very encouraging yields and were therefore directly sent to the assembly sites of both Nanya and Infineon for packaging. After making some fine tuning on the manufacturing recipes of the 110nm DRAM process, the wafers for the qualification process were started. The quality of the parts was excellent, so that all the reliability tests were completed successfully and Inotera was fully qualified one month earlier than originally planned. Inotera is now delivering qualified parts to both of its parent companies.
In addition to completing the qualification and improving the yield, the volume ramp was the next challenge, the international team of Inotera Memories had to tackle. In the first phase Inotera is planning to reach 24k wafers starts per month. This phase will be completed by the end of 2004. Following this stage, a second ramp phase will follow, in which the total capacity will reach more than 50k WSPM. This phase should be completed by the end of 2005.
The formation of the international team of Inotera Memories has also worked extremely well, with the employees of both companies. The management and the whole team are dedicated to continue along these lines, and to successfully master the upcoming challenges of inserting new products, increasing volume and yield as well as moving to the next technology node, after it has been fully developed by the joint Infineon/Nanya Development team.
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