Others News
- IBM finds way to recycle silicon wafers
Date: 31-Oct-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
BEIJING, Oct. 31 (Xinhuanet) -- IBM announced Tuesday that it has developed a process that can recycle defective silicon wafers and reuse them in its own factories and for solar-energy panels, media reported.
Wafers are the thin discs of silicon that chipmakers use to imprint chip patterns. From there, the wafers are cut into individual chips that run computers, cell phones, game players and the like.
Since they need to be nearly flawless to be used, the imperfect ones are normally erased with acidic chemicals and discarded. IBM had been sandblasting its flawed wafers to remove proprietary material.
Using its new process, IBM processes defective wafers and reuses some as 'monitor' wafers to recalibrate gear in its chip plants.
The IBM site in Burlington, Vt., has been using the process and reported an annual savings in 2006 of more than 500,000 U.S. dollars. Expansion of the technique has begun at IBM's site in East Fishkill, N.Y., and the company estimates its 2007 savings are more than 1.5 million dollars. The Vermont and New York plants are IBM's only semiconductor manufacturing sites.
'It reduces our cost and it reduces our carbon footprint,' said IBM manager Thomas Jagielski, who heads up environmental operations at the company's Burlington chip factory. 'And it provides resources to the solar industry.
Additionally, any new silicon could provide relief to the solar industry. Solar power currently generates much less than 1 percent of global electricity, but in recent years solar panel sales have had 30 to 40 percent annual growth.
This year, the solar industry has tied the computer industry as the world's largest consumer of refined silicon, a material that requires high temperatures and large amounts of energy to make.
IBM plans to patent the new process and provide details to the semiconductor manufacturing industry.
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