More and more companies are reclaiming InP wafers to reduce operating costs and for environmental purposes. What’s great about the reclaiming process, is that it can be done up to three times, as long as the wafer can still withstand the processing, which means semiconductor companies can save a great deal of money from reclaiming wafers! In this article, we will discuss some of the processes involved in reclaiming InP wafers.
Sorting involves visually inspecting wafers, wafer type identification, and dopant and mechanical parameters measurement. This process helps prevent metallic contamination during the entire wafer reclaiming process and to determine which wafers are suitable for reclaiming.
Stripping is an essential part of reclaiming wafers. It helps get rid of any impurities and unwanted materials on the wafer’s surface, including metal films. Stripping involves using a sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide mixture, concentrated HF etch, and a KOH etch.
Grinding is sometimes necessary, especially if you’re working with a thick SOI. Grinding helps get rid of other unwanted films that weren’t removed during the stripping process. The process involves chemical mechanical processing.
The polishing process uses a combination of chemical and mechanical polishing to achieve a mirror-like, smooth finish. Polishing can be done on one side of the wafer or both. After this step, the wafers are bare silicon and are thinner than their original thickness. But the polishing step leaves slurry and other unwanted particles on the wafers, so they still need to go through a final cleaning step.
Final cleaning helps get rid of the unwanted particles, metallic contaminants, and residual slurry left of the wafer from the polishing step. This step involves multiple cleaning stages to make sure that the InP reclaim wafers produced are brand-new.
To produce high-quality InP reclaim wafers, they need to go through several steps, including the ones mentioned above. At Wafer World, we offer high-quality wafers at a reasonable price. Contact us for inquires!
