inhabitat.com — What this process does is remove the remnants of the intellectual property from the wafers surface. This allows the wafers to be reused, or ideally, turned into solar panels. The process has been deemed innovative enough to be awarded the “2007 Most Valuable Pollution Prevention Award” from The National Pollution Prevention Roundtable.
Nov 12, 2007 View in Crawl 4
antbingNov 13, 2007
Some 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 s**t that makes it to the Digg front page.
astaroNov 13, 2007
I 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)
cphelpsNov 13, 2007
Is red knight another name for your brain cells?
cphelpsNov 13, 2007
lol luz man, lulz dude, lolz luz u gotta luv idiuts. Seriously, way to miss the point.
somnivalNov 13, 2007
Apparently 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."<a class="user" href="http://www.p2.org/p2week/2007Winners.cfm">http://www.p2.org/p2week/2007Winners.cfm</a>
aki009Nov 13, 2007
Your 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.
fgsfdsNov 13, 2007
Shattering 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.