In a development that threatens to generate the oversupply and tumbling prices that led to the 1987 Chip Wars, Japanese companies are planning to produce the next two generations of dynamic memory chips on 8 wafers, Microbytes Daily reports. Because bigger wafers yield more parts if you get the design right, this should enable chipmakers to get the 4M-bit and 16M-bit generations to market in volume more quickly. An 8 wafer has 1.8 times the surface area of the 6 wafers currently in common use.According to the English-language Mainichi Daily News in Japan, several of the largest Japanese chipmakers are planning to set up lines producing 4M and 16M parts on 8 wafers – Toshiba is expected to start up its 8 line for the current 4M generation late this year, and NEC Corp plans to start testing this year or early next, and expects to have its 8 line operational by 1992. The hope is that by then, the market for high-definition televisions will have taken off by then: these will need to be stuffed with memory chips, but there is a big risk that consumer take-up will be very slow.
