Brother can you spare $7 billion?

The transition to 450-mm wafers, if it occurs, is going to be really really expensive. I suspect everyone knew that already, but now Wright Williams & Kelly has turned its simulation tools loose to figure out just how expensive. Start with $7 billion for the initial supply of test wafers alone, and go from there. Among other worries, there's the very real possibility that CMOS will run out of steam before the industry can recover the transition costs.

Hmmm.... Maybe we can squeeze more productivity out of 300-mm wafers after all, huh?