Extending wafer lifecycles, conserving silicon: Applied opens Taiwan wafer reclaim center

By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor -- Electronic News, 6/27/2007

It's already been a busy week for semiconductor manufacturing equipment giant Applied Materials. Yesterday, the company said it would acquire silicon wafer saw supplier HCT, then late yesterday also said that to extend the lifecycle of silicon wafers as well as to conserve silicon, it opened a 300-mm wafer reclaim center in Tainan, Taiwan.

The 3,120-square-meter facility is located in Tainan’s Science-Based Industrial Park, and will include three cleanrooms that utilize Applied’s advanced process systems to provide customers with state-of-the-art wafer reclaim technology.

Mark Stark, VP and general manager of Applied’s fab operation services division explained that this new capability expands the company’s opportunity to use its process technology expertise to provide customers with new ways to drive down costs. “Typically, wafers are the single largest consumable cost contributor for a fab. With an industry-wide shortage of silicon, the use of wafer reclaim services is expected to grow to help offset the limited availability of silicon and decrease non-product wafer costs. Our unique reclaim methods have demonstrated significant cost-of-ownership benefits for our customers, including higher wafer quality and increased process yields.”

Using its advanced manufacturing systems and software, Applied said it can extend the lifecycle of test wafers by over 45 percent to 11 uses per wafer thereby reducing costs for high quality, particle-free wafers – while conserving the world's limited supply of silicon.

The facility also contains a process for the non-destructive recovery of wafers containing carbon-based low k films that removes virtually no silicon from the wafer.

A study by SEMI in March indicated that the use of test wafers has increased in the semiconductor industry to represent approximately 15 percent of total silicon wafer usage due to an increased use of test wafers in 300-mm wafer fabrication.