Nikon D40 shipping today

In article ,
wrote:
(Philip Homburg) writes:

If Nikon can APS-C cameras as cheap as the D40, then sub-$2000 FF
cameras should in theory be possible.

Not so, there are no steppers that have a big enough reticle size
to do a FF chip in one exposure.

I don't know enough semi-conductor manufacturing to guess what kind
of impact that may have on yield.

But can't Nikon just make a one off stepper that is a bit bigger? The
difference between APS-C and fullframe is after all just a factor of 1.5.


--
That was it. Done. The faulty Monk was turned out into the desert where it
could believe what it liked, including the idea that it had been hard done
by. It was allowed to keep its horse, since horses were so cheap to make.
-- Douglas Adams in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Philip Homburg wrote:
In article ,
wrote:
(Philip Homburg) writes:

If Nikon can APS-C cameras as cheap as the D40, then sub-$2000 FF
cameras should in theory be possible.

Not so, there are no steppers that have a big enough reticle size
to do a FF chip in one exposure.

I don't know enough semi-conductor manufacturing to guess what kind
of impact that may have on yield.

But can't Nikon just make a one off stepper that is a bit bigger? The
difference between APS-C and fullframe is after all just a factor of 1.5.
It is not just the stepper but also the optics, and that is where you
get into huge money.
The optics for producing ICs are pretty exotic and making a special one
that has a larger FOW would cost a whole lot of money.

Scott

In article .com,
Scott W wrote:
It is not just the stepper but also the optics, and that is where you
get into huge money.
The optics for producing ICs are pretty exotic and making a special one
that has a larger FOW would cost a whole lot of money.

But they must be doing new optics all the time. I doubt that you can do 50nm
with the optics of 5 years ago.


--
That was it. Done. The faulty Monk was turned out into the desert where it
could believe what it liked, including the idea that it had been hard done
by. It was allowed to keep its horse, since horses were so cheap to make.
-- Douglas Adams in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Philip Homburg wrote:
In article .com,
Scott W wrote:
It is not just the stepper but also the optics, and that is where you
get into huge money.
The optics for producing ICs are pretty exotic and making a special one
that has a larger FOW would cost a whole lot of money.

But they must be doing new optics all the time. I doubt that you can do 50nm
with the optics of 5 years ago.

Sure they are doing new optics, new wavelengths, phase control, optical
immersion, all that good stuff to get the features down in size, but
the cost to make an imaging system with a larger FOW is much higher
then making one with a smaller FOV. My guess is that the needed size
for a processor is the driving force on how big the step and repeat
size is.

Scott

"Scott W" writes:
But can't Nikon just make a one off stepper that is a bit bigger? The
difference between APS-C and fullframe is after all just a factor of 1.5.
It is not just the stepper but also the optics, and that is where you
get into huge money.
The optics for producing ICs are pretty exotic and making a special one
that has a larger FOW would cost a whole lot of money.

Where do these optics come in? I thought it was basically contact
printing from masks written with electron beams.

How are the 5D sensors being made? What about the even larger sensors
in MF backs? What about telescope CCD's which are also pretty large?

Paul Rubin wrote:
"Scott W" writes:
But can't Nikon just make a one off stepper that is a bit bigger? The
difference between APS-C and fullframe is after all just a factor of 1.5.
It is not just the stepper but also the optics, and that is where you
get into huge money.
The optics for producing ICs are pretty exotic and making a special one
that has a larger FOW would cost a whole lot of money.

Where do these optics come in? I thought it was basically contact
printing from masks written with electron beams.
Nope, UV light and some pretty fancy optics.


How are the 5D sensors being made? What about the even larger sensors
in MF backs? What about telescope CCD's which are also pretty large?

I belive if you go past the step and repeat size you can still make a
sensor, but it becomes a lot more difficult. For one offs like a
telesope CCD you might be able to use an ebeam, too slow for production
however, i don't really know what they are doing for the very large
CCDs.

Scott

(Philip Homburg) writes:

But can't Nikon just make a one off stepper that is a bit bigger?
The difference between APS-C and fullframe is after all just a
factor of 1.5.

Yes, just send them about $10x10^9. Canon and AMSL would also be interested,
one of them more so...

--
Paul Repacholi 1 Crescent Rd.,
+61 (08) 9257-1001 Kalamunda.
West Australia 6076
comp.os.vms,- The Older, Grumpier Slashdot
Raw, Cooked or Well-done, it's all half baked.
EPIC, The Architecture of the future, always has been, always will be.

"Scott W" writes:

I belive if you go past the step and repeat size you can still make
a sensor, but it becomes a lot more difficult. For one offs like a
telesope CCD you might be able to use an ebeam, too slow for
production however, i don't really know what they are doing for the
very large CCDs.

Overlaping of butting fields. Problem is, being very rough and ready,
if your yield is 0.x, then for mulpiple steps your yield drops to
(0.x)^N. ie a 60% APC-C goes to a ~0.18 at best. You will have extra
failure due to missalignment between steps as well, plus a higher
failure from wafer defects.

The saving grace for fabbing very large CCDs is that they are almost
all about 24u well size, so things are a bit roomy, and you don't have
a pile of nasty CMOS to get aligned.

--
Paul Repacholi 1 Crescent Rd.,
+61 (08) 9257-1001 Kalamunda.
West Australia 6076
comp.os.vms,- The Older, Grumpier Slashdot
Raw, Cooked or Well-done, it's all half baked.
EPIC, The Architecture of the future, always has been, always will be.

writes:
Overlaping of butting fields. Problem is, being very rough and ready,
if your yield is 0.x, then for mulpiple steps your yield drops to
(0.x)^N. ie a 60% APC-C goes to a ~0.18 at best. You will have extra
failure due to missalignment between steps as well, plus a higher
failure from wafer defects.

Well, I read somewhere that an FF sensor is currently around 6x as
expensive as an APS-C sensor. If that's true, and if Nikon is making
a profit on the D40, I think that an FF camera at the D200 price level
is quite feasible.