What happens to old fab tech? A few years ago I tried searching around online to see if there was anywhere you could buy decommissioned machinery for fabricating NAND flash, but I couldn't find anything or any sign that such things ever really come up for sale. Has anyone worked in a fab or otherwise have some idea of what happens to the stuff that worked at larger process sizes?
A lot of the stuff, e.g. 193i immersion litho, gets reused the by the fabs, other stuff gets used for older nodes, which are often still thriving, e.g. 180nm is popping for analog.
Also, some of it just gets trashed. I remember seeing photos of a bunch of equipment just sitting away rusting slowly in a parking lot somewhere in (I think) the UK. Obsolete node and wafer size, no real market for it.
