Reclaim

Silicon is by far the greatest material expense in semiconductor manufacturing. Reclaiming wafers is a cost effective program that companies use to maximize the value of previously used silicon substrates. Due to the high costs of prime grade silicon and large volumes consumed, many semiconductor facilities use reclaimed wafers to optimize and monitor their manufacturing processes and equipment.

Reclaim involves removing unwanted material from the wafer with a combination of dry and wet processes, and then polishing & cleaning the wafer to restore the silicon surface to a usable grade. The nature of the typical process requires some removal of silicon. This means that after a number of reclaim cycles, the wafers become too thin to be used and must be replaced by new ones. Pure Wafer offers supplied wafers to replenish fallout from reclaim pools.