We repeatedly reported that instead of the silicon substrate size 300 millimeters in the mass production of chips come 450-mm plate. The increased area of the substrate will allow to get more products from one plate and, consequently, lower production costs, but in recent times the industry is not yet ready for this step.
Today the largest manufacturers of semiconductor devices are TSMC, Samsung and Intel. They can afford to invest in the substrate size of 450 millimeters, but the company's different about the outlook for the transition. Intel, for example, has moderated its activity in this direction, and apply 450-millimeter wafer company will not in 2018, as previously reported, but only later in 2020.
Samsung, in turn, is the world's largest supplier of memory chips for various purposes. With the development of topological rules 10 nm and smaller South Korean giant can start using 450-millimeter substrate NAND chip manufacturing in order to reduce costs.