Ultra-pure and environmentally friendly wet chemistry made possible through on-site recycling and reprocessing

Corporations are facing the ever increasing demands to reduce the environmental impact from Semiconductor manufacturing. At the same time, the latest wafer designs require ever increasing purity of chemicals and processes. Many times these two requirements are contradictory, however, in the area of wet chemistry, both the reduction of environmental wastes and the improvement of chemical purity can be readily and cost effectively achieved through the use of on-site reclaim and reprocessing. Sulfuric acid, Hydrofluoric acid, and Isopropyl alcohol are leading chemicals for recycling due to their ultra-high purity requirements, large consumption volumes, high cost, waste created, and their disposal challenge. This paper is an overview of the technologies employed to enable reprocessing and includes several case studies to demonstrate the economic and environmental benefits of reprocessing.