IBM Transforms Wasted Chips into Solar Cells
IBM's new breakthrough recycling process, promising to turn semiconductor byproduct into the raw material for silicon-constrained solar panel production, is a shining example of a waste-to-energy success.
Typically, each of the 3 million semiconductor wafers IBM discards each year contains some portion of IBM's chip designs. Since these chips could fall into the hands of IBM's competitors if simply discarded, they are usually shipped to Earth-clogging landfills.
However, soaring energy prices and environmental concerns are becoming routine triggers of outside-the-box thinking all across the Silicon Valley and at IBM.
The company's new eco-friendly reprocessing scheme, devised at IBM's Burlington, VT semiconductor manufacturing center is set to break the waste cycle by repurposing the wasted wafers as raw materials for photovoltaic cells. The company says that its revolutionary reclamation process "reduces the amount of energy required for production, lowers the level of greenhouse gases emitted and provides energy savings by creating the raw materials needed for solar power". IBM says that the recovery project resulted in lowering the input cost for monitor wafer production, while boosting to the program's overall efficiency.
The company's innovative green thinking did not go unnoticed. IBM's wafer recycling program earned the PC maker the "2007 Most Valuable Pollution Prevention Award" from The National Pollution Prevention Roundtable.
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