A NOVEL GALLIUM ARSENIDE EXTRACTION/RECOVERY BIOPROCESS

THE ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY HAS BECOME A MAJOR ECONOMIC FORCE. BY 1991, SIX PERCENT ($758 MILLION) OF THE TOTAL SEMICONDUCTOR MARKET WILL BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY GALLIUM ARSENIDE (GAAS) COMPONENTS. GAAS WAFERS WILL ALSO ACCOUNT FOR A STEADY 6 PERCENT SHARE OF TOTAL MERCHANT WAFER CONSUMPTION THROUGH 1991. GAAS IC'S HAVE NOW BEEN ACCEPTED FOR MAINFRAME COMPUTERS, WORK STATIONS, DIGITAL AND MICROWAVE COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AND TEST EQUIPMENT DESIGNS. GAAS MATERIALS QUALITY, YIELD AND AVAILABILITY HAVE IMPROVED. FAILED GAAS MATERIALS, HOWEVER, WHETHER FROMUNDOPED, UNENCAPSULATED WAFERS, DOPED WAFERS OR FULLY MOUNTED CHIPS, CAN ACCOUNT FOR 73% TO 100% OF STARTING MATERIALS. THE TOTAL DOLLAR LOSS OF GAAS, GOLD AND SILVER RUNS INTO MILLIONS OF DOLLARS PER YEAR. SEVERAL COMPANIES HAVE BEGUN CHEMICAL DEGRADATION AND RECOVERY OF GALLIUM BUT THE PROCESS IS EXPENSIVE AND OFTEN ENVIRONMENTALLY UNSAFE. TECHNICAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATES, INC. (TRA) HAS PERFORMED PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS TO DETERMINE THE FEASIBILITY OF BIODEGRADING AND RECOVERING GALLIUM, SILVER AND GOLD FROM CHIPS, WAFERS AND SLUDGE. THE ORGANISM USED IN THESE EXPERIMENTS IS TRA PATENT-PENDING AND LISTED WITH ATCC.