Market Outlook
Get ready for smaller chips: what last-buy ASIC notifications mean for manufacturers
By Enrique Martinez, functional safety manager at EnSilica T
he relentless march of Moore’s Law is forcing a shift in the semiconductor industry. The once dominant 600nm chip manufacturing process is being phased out as foundries prioritize smaller, more powerful nodes. Increasing numbers of foundries are issuing last-time buy notifications for their 600nm ASICs, signalling the end of one era for semiconductors – and, by extension – for the myriad 600nm devices in industries as varied as automotive, aerospace, defence, manufacturing, and telecommunications. The phase-out will prompt companies to re-evaluate their bill of materials as they prepare for a new dawn in which smaller, more integrated, and more efficient devices are the norm. While most companies understand their product designs will need to evolve eventually, some have expressed understandable concerns in response to the last-time buy notification. This article will address the steps needed to ensure they take full advantage of migrating to the next generation of semiconductor devices.
Why 600nm devices are coming to an end
The story of semiconductors is one of exponential evolution characterized by shrinking chip sizes and growing power (as outlined in Moore’s law). At the start of the 1970s, chip sizes were 10µm containing 2300 transistors. By the early 1980s, they were down to 1µm with more than 100,000 transistors. By the 90s, the number was more than one million and a new, 600nm process was born. It proved to be a pivotal milestone heralding the introduction of sub-micron technology and mixed-signal applications. These innovations helped make the 600nm design an enduring classic, ensuring that 8-inch (200mm) wafers became the industry standard, that 5V
18 December/January 2025
logic levels were most often used, and that products developed on 600nm processes could remain in production for many years used in almost everything from consumer gadgets to industrial equipment. Yet, all good things come to an end. Despite their importance to so many industries, these chips struggled to compete with newer processes offering higher density, lower power consumption, and improved performance. In the quest for continual improvement, foundries began producing larger, 12-inch (300mm) wafers with lower voltages, often while maintaining dual production lines for 600nm as well as, say, 200nm or 300nm wafers. However, manufacturing advances have made the economics of dual
Components in Electronics
production increasingly unsustainable, leaving foundries with a tough business choice to make. As such, a number of foundries have issued last-time buy notifications for their 600nm processes, and
in many cases, accelerating manufacturing companies’ plans to migrate their products to use newer, more feature rich, semiconductor devices.
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