New Low
According to industry sources, SK Hynix will start processing 20-nano wafers for mass production from next month, and start the full-fledged production of 20-nano class DRAM in July. Until now, the company has tested wafers in order to verify its ability to begin mass production in its M10 plant in Icheon, Gyeonggi-do Province, reaching the final stage of 20-nano DRAM mass production.
So far, industry sources had expressed concerns, as SK Hynix entered the 20-nano class DRAM market later than Samsung Electronics. In the past decade, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix usually maintained a speed gap of 3 to 6 months in terms of micro processing conversion speed. Considering this fact, some had negative views that SK Hynix might be faced with practical limits of micro processing conversion.
From 2010 to last year, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix showed no significant differences in technology conversion speed. After Samsung Electronics started the mass production of 30-nano class DRAM for the first time in the world in July 2010, SK Hynix caught up with Samsung Electronics right away in the first quarter last year. When Samsung Electronics entered 28-nano processing (2x) in 2011, SK Hynix did so six months later, maintaining a steady lag time.
However, the situation changed with early 20-nano (2z) DRAM. The opinion is gaining strength in the semiconductor industry that the micro processing limit, which is possible to reach with semiconductor lithography equipment currently owned by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, is at the 25-nano level. So they must use Extreme Ultra Violet (EUC) lithography equipment in a bid to enter early 20-nano and 10-nano level processing.
In fact, SK Hynix and Micron are still stopped at 25-nano processing, which was introduced in 2013. As Samsung Electronics entered 20-nano processing for the first in the industry in March last year, the company started widening its gap with the late starters.