Describing Wafers

The collection of wafers to be processed in a run must be described using one or more wafer descriptions. A wafer description includes the wafer material, dimensions, and other information that is critical for planning your run.

For your convenience, we offer wafers from our inventory. You can choose from our inventory if you like (and plan to pay for them if and when the run is ready for your final approval). If you don't want wafers from our inventory because you are supplying the wafers yourself, or perhaps because you don't find what you want in our inventory, click on the link to enter a "custom wafer description."

Choosing wafer descriptions from our inventory does not actually purchase or reserve the wafers for you. Because our inventory is changing weekly, the number of wafers of a certain type that you request may not be available when your run is ready for the actual processing to begin. You can, however, purchase the wafers at any time to avoid potential delays. You will find payment instructions on the run card after adding wafers from our inventory.

If your wafers are pre-processed then it is extremely important that you provide a complete description of the preceding processing. If the pre-processing left any alignment marks on the wafers that are intended for mask alignment, then you should describe these alignment marks.

Sometimes it is important to distinguish the front and back of wafers involved in your process run. For example, some processes may affect each side of a wafer differently. The terms "front" and "back" are used consistently throughout a process run to refer to a specific side of the wafer. This means the "front" of the wafer does not change from one process step to the next. The same deposition process may deposit material on the front of the wafer in one step and the back of the wafer in the next step, depending (for example) on how the wafers are placed in the deposition equipment. The side of the wafer to process may be selected when editing the process step.