> It's not just about safety for you, proper disposal of these chemicals is essential for the many generations to come.
Yes Gordon Moore created a superfund site or two in California.
Yes Gordon Moore created a superfund site or two in California.
The HF monster everyone is talking about in this thread is dangerous only as a concentrated acid. It's highly soluble -- reduce it with a rainstorm or two and let it recombine to a neutral pH and you rapidly get to (literally!) toothpaste-level toxicity.
There's a VERY serious discussion to be had about the safety for a backyard chip fabricator. But the idea that this is some kind of long term pollutant (relative to much more serious issues like the cleaning solutions in your very own closet!) is pretty spun.
Edit: yeah, as the responses point out, the "superfund" sites in question are things like VOC contamination you see with any urban industry, nothing particular to semiconductor fabrication that would justify the upthread quote about contamination "for many generations to come".
Intel graciously paid for trees to brighten up the street and has a nice street sign saying so. (It doesn’t say why they did.)
This one is not directly related to silicon production, but the QA that came after.
Intel superfund site #2: https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0...
Intel superfund site #3: https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-15/american-... (cites the main source that is no longer on the web)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrtyUnad7Jo (audio from the interview)
Despite the quote, what a lot of people question is Gordon Moore's ignorance. He has a PhD in chemistry afterall.
There’s a generation or two of chemists, pharmacists, etc who habitually mouth pipetted common lab solvents that we now know to be carcinogenic.
As early as 1969 chemists were identified as having increased cancer risk
http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20130404/in-search-of-...
Lot's of information about the situation in that article. TL;DR: Palo Alto is a toxic cesspit.