The costly move that began in 2000 from 8-inch (200-mm) to 12-inch (300-mm) wafers (again, a 1.5 × increase in wafer diameter) provided a 2.5 × increase in wafer size. A further move to 18-inch (450-mm) wafers, which would again impose enormous development costs on industry leaders and equipment makers, entered an early stage of evaluation in 2008 and would provide a similar increase.3 As discussed in Crisis 1, semiconductor
