Applied Materials opens new wafer reclaim facility

Applied Materials Inc, one of the world's biggest semiconductor manufacturing equipment suppliers, opened an advanced wafer reclaim center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park (南部科學園區) yesterday.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Applied Materials chief executive officer Mike Splinter inaugurated the center during a ceremony in Tainan.

With three clean rooms, the 3,120m2 facility will help customers extend the lifecycle of test wafers, the California-based company said.

"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," Mark Stark, vice president and general manager of Applied Materials' Fab Operation Services division, said in a statement.

Using the company's manufacturing systems and software, Applied Materials said the center can extend the lifecycle of test wafers by over 45 percent to 11 uses per wafer.

Citing a study conducted by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) in March, the company said the use of test wafers has increased in the semiconductor industry to represent approximately 15 percent of the total silicon wafer usage.

Applied Materials said it planned to spend NT$900 million (US$27.45 million) on the Tainan center to make 300mm wafers.

On Tuesday, the US company won an order from Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能科技), the nation's biggest solar wafer supplier, to build a solar-panel plant using thin-film technology. The US$74 million worth of manufacturing equipment will enable the Taiwanese company to produce solar modules with the advanced 8.5-generation facility technology.