What is Digg?39 Comments
- dredman, on 11/13/2007, -1/+10How do you remove "intellectual property" from a wafer?
Sounds like something an attorney would do? - bossm4n, on 11/13/2007, -0/+9RTFA!!!! Essentially, silicon wafers are being recycled to turn into solar panels, thus they do not go to landfills.
- jizzlies, on 11/13/2007, -2/+9I say we use methane from trash. We'll always have trash.
- aussieNickuss, on 11/13/2007, -1/+7E-Waste will become a good thing.
- Murdats, on 11/13/2007, -0/+6finally, lawyers can start contributing to society.
- aussieNickuss, on 11/13/2007, -0/+6Cleaner than coal.
- ingoldsby, on 11/13/2007, -0/+5Do you have any idea how long solar panels last with little to no maintenance?
I grew up in a solar powered home through the 80's and once the panels were on-line, they never had to be worked on. We were "off grid" until 1990 when we (meaning the kids) all wanted computers and video game consoles that chewed up too much electricity for our aging battery bank to keep up with. Even after that, the panels continued to provide power that fed back into the grid until the house was sold in 2005. They may still be working, I don't know, but that was using almost 30 year old solar technology.
The manufacture of solar panels may not be clean, but once they are up and running, they become a perfectly clean and consistent form of energy. With nuclear, you start with the mining of nuclear material which is far from clean, and end with nuclear waste that we still have no solution to, besides burying it in the ground.
Solar may not be perfect, but it's far far from the dirtiest form of electricity generation, and once you factor in used waste being turned into the panels it quickly becomes a very very clean form of energy. - AntBing, on 11/13/2007, -0/+5Some of us have jobs that keep us from getting every story on the day it breaks, and a week is nothing compared to some of the ***** that makes it to the Digg front page.
- aki009, on 11/13/2007, -0/+5Your engineering lecturer is wrong, perhaps due to personal believes. There are several countries that have nuclear power plants that make very good economic sense, yet the countries have no nuclear weapons programs, and purchase all or a significant portion of their fuel from countries that do not have such programs either. Sweden, Germany and Finland come to mind off the top of my head.
- raybury, on 11/13/2007, -0/+5Without access to the story, I may be speaking out of turn, but I do speak from experience with processing silicon wafers. The headline sounds to me like "New Process Turns Gold Bars into Brick Mortar." Really, a couple of process revolutions ago an 8" round wafer could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, such that very few were scrapped entirely.
As to 'removing intellectual property,' this probably involves etching off layers of silicon features with a nasty acid blend in a process that takes massive amounts of highly-processed ultrapure water. That process is no friend to the environment.
Sounds to me like a greenwash by the microchip industry, when starting with a fresh silicon crystal (itself rather dirty) would probably be better for the environment, even if it means tossing the scraped wafer into a landfill -- after shattering it to 'protect' IP. - cphelps, on 11/14/2007, -1/+5lol luz man, lulz dude, lolz luz u gotta luv idiuts.
Seriously, way to miss the point. - theciuffo, on 11/13/2007, -0/+4Finally I can stop mining the gold plating off all these old procs.
- RedHerringHack, on 11/13/2007, -0/+4Got Agenda?
- snyperr2s, on 11/13/2007, -1/+4so if i have a clear case, my computer can power my computer
- Mockylock, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2I think I read "Shortage of silicon".
- somnival, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2The idea is to take already existing silicon wafers that would have been discarded and convert them into solar panels.
- somnival, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1Apparently IBM and other companies care about their intellectual properties. This new process avoids using toxic acids:
"Normal pattern stripping would involve the use of corrosive acids such as H2SO4, HF, HNO3, and Ozone. The new process avoids the use of corrosive chemicals, removing the pattern using an abrasive pad, water and slurry with the pattern materials coming off as a solid."
http://www.p2.org/p2week/2007Winners.cfm - buildmorerobots, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1sounds good, but what's the cost and are the wafers more efficient than regular solar panels? So many questions.
- CletusJones, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1I look at it this way: the Sun is, by far, the most vast source of energy in the solar system. With a few more technological advances, it can be a viable source of much of our energy (perhaps couple it with wind, hydroelectric, and nuclear). Plus, solar power can be generated just about anywhere, whereas nobody wants a nuclear reactor in their backyard. Solar power will eventually win out.
- majordanger, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1OLD! A company based in Arizona back in the late 70's was buying scrap wafers from the Motorola plant...They would scrub the artwork off and lay down a big photo diode. UNTIL!... MOT figured out how much money they were making,then no more scarp wafers.
- aki009, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1When a company is selling the "IP" that's on the wafers for billions of dollars an acre, a constant concern is having others rip you off with copies _or_ manufacturing rejects. Reverse engineering is easier if a manufacturing reject does not have all the metal and insulating layers on it; thus getting multiple such wafers makes the task of copying the circuit easier as layers are exposed. Further, if the wafer is rejected when effectively complete, someone could take the wafer, process it into packaged products, and sell these as originals.
- HonestAbe, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1Because solar panels generate soooooo much energy...
- aki009, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1It means removing the metal layers on top that make up whatever the chip was originally designed to do.
- aki009, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1There's plenty of silicon out there. It's just expensive to form at the required level of purity. Reusing the wafers saves landfills and energy. Neat idea.
- somnival, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1"Normal pattern stripping would involve the use of corrosive acids such as H2SO4, HF, HNO3, and Ozone. The new process avoids the use of corrosive chemicals, removing the pattern using an abrasive pad, water and slurry with the pattern materials coming off as a solid."
http://www.p2.org/p2week/2007Winners.cfm - fgsfds, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1Silicon!=Silicone
- cphelps, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1Is red knight another name for your brain cells?
- fgsfds, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1Shattering it doesn't do enough damage to insure that no information can be harvested from it, and releases hazardous silicon dust.
IIRC, they currently acid-wash wafers to remove IP. This method seems to be a way to do that without wrecking the wafer. - X1Jack, on 11/13/2007, -0/+0Dugg for being accurate about nuclear energy.
- Daiken, on 11/13/2007, -1/+1Who cares about removing "intellectual property"? You would probably have to use toxic acid to do so, and doing such would accomplish nothing. Chips are so complex, trying to discover trade secrets by backward engineering them is pretty much impossible. Plus, if someone wants the chip, what's to keep them from going and buying it? Are these "solar silicon chips" the only source they can get them from?
- vikingcoder, on 11/13/2007, -1/+0Yes. They do.
For the money spent so far on the Iraq War, the US could have solved the current Iran nuclear problem by rebuilding their electricity infrastructure into a completely solar-powered nation.
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option ...
The Iraq War has cost $456 billion by Sept. 30, 2007 (end of fiscal year 2007)
Spending only includes incremental costs, additional funds that are expended due to the war.
http://www.solarbuzz.com/SolarIndices.htm (Case III - Installed Industrial System)
An installed 500 kilowatt solar system currently costs $2.5 million.
456 billion / 2.5 million = 182,400 such solar systems
http://www.solar4power.com/map13-global-solar-powe ...
Iran rates a yearly minimum of 5.4 sun hours / day in its southern areas.
500 KW plant * 5.4 sun hours / day = 2700 kWh / day = 985,500 kWh / year
Solar system total: 180 billion kWh / year
Iran currently uses 145.1 billion kWh / year - lorddazzer, on 11/13/2007, -2/+0News Flash: Increasing bust sizes linked to global shortage of silicon
- Astaro, on 11/14/2007, -4/+1I really don't know where you got that idea.
Do you have any idea how energy intensive mining, processing, and transporting nuclear fuel is?
and because the US doesn't re-process spent fuel, you have transport it again, contain and dispose of it, along with half of the reactor parts.
My engineering lecturer tells me this is only economic if you have a atomic weapons program to subsidise the entire mess.
(or possibly if you buy your fuel from another country which does) - ripple123, on 11/13/2007, -5/+0This story is weeks old. seriously.
- slickbird, on 11/13/2007, -11/+4This innovation should make Al Gore very happy. Chalk one up to the conservationists. Take that, fossil fuel industry.
- ColonelJessup, on 11/13/2007, -9/+0The blue knight RULES! The red knight sucks the big one! You're going down red knight! Going down, down, down. Red knight going down. Down, down, down, red knight going down!
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