BUILDING ON THE PAST, READY FOR THE FUTURE: - MEMC

38
In 1980, with the basic technology of silicon
wafers firmly established and the sophistication
of integrated circuits increasing rapidly, the very
nature of the silicon wafer industry changed.
From 1950 to 1980, progress in the semiconductor
industry was driven
primarily by materials
science. That shifted in
1980 as process sciences
began to dominate
silicon wafer production
as customers began to
demand application-
specific wafers.
In response, MEMC
amplified its focus on quality, technological
innovation, and customer satisfaction. Application
engineers were assigned to customers to better
understand their silicon wafer needs. At times,
the customers’ processes were modeled inhouse
to ensure the performance of MEMC’s
products in the customer’s wafer fabrication
C H A P T E R F O U R
Great Strides in Technology
DiD yoU knoW?
In silicon wafer manufacturing,
an impurity level of one part per
billion equates to one foot in the
distance to the moon.
lines. Simultaneously, MEMC’s key strategy was
to constantly improve its own manufacturing
efficiency to maintain its technological superiority
and cost competitiveness.
1 st
granular
PolysIlICon
In 1991, MEMC’s Pasadena
facility was the first
company in the industry
to develop a process using
granular polysilicon. In
the original chunk
polysilicon process
obtained from Siemens,
rods of polysilicon were produced by the
decomposition of an ultra-pure gas containing
silicon, hydrogen, and chlorine. The rods were
crushed into manageable chunks, which were
then placed into the CZ puller crucible by hand.
Silicon is relatively hard, and the crushing process
posed a purity problem since the hammers that