Source : IntelProcessors are produced from large silicon waffers that are currently 300mm wide, with each CPU engraved next to each other. Hereafter is a 300mm waffer with Penryn CPUs.
To produce always more CPUs per waffer, and consequently decrease production costs, founders have 2 possibilities : use thinner engraving process and/or increase the size of the waffer.
Despite what one could think, the second option is very complex, and if Intel or IBM are using 300 mm waffer in most of its manufacturing plants, many other founders are still using 200 mm wafers.
To develop the production on 450 mm wafers, several competing companies decided to join their forces to reach this goal: Intel, Samsung and TSMC entered a strategic partnership to share their knowledge in this field. Once fully validated, one would be able to engrave 2 t o3 times more CPU on those larger waffers. In the meantime, engraving process will be below 30 nm and yield should then be even higher.
[translation by Linathael]
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