On 28/08/06, Takeshita K <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > My understanding is that the current size is the one which produces > the most yield under the current process using the stepper. > It's not the choice by the camera makers or sensor makers etc. > I used to have a link which explains this, but lost it. Will dig it
I'm not familiar with the term "stepper:" in this context. Yield factors make a big difference to sensor manufacture affordability over other general semiconductors which don't often exceed 10x10mm. The shear expanse of a sensor area means that due to the lower numbers of chips per silicon wafer (for all intents a fixed cost) any wafer contaminants will render a larger portion of the wafer to waste. And since wafers are circular (Sony now produced 300mm diameter wafers) the larger the sensor produced the more the waste. The tech used to produce the sensor used in the Kodak 14MP FF meant that there were only 11 full sensors per wafer (approx 125mm diameter) assuming a 100% yield, no wonder they were expensive. Think how many 24x16mm sensor could be shoehorned into a 300mm diameter wafer vs 36x24mm sensors, it's not a linear correlation. -- Rob Studdert HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA Tel +61-2-9554-4110 UTC(GMT) +10 Hours [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~distudio//publications/ Pentax user since 1986, PDMLer since 1998 -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
