The industry involves several very different stages of production.
High purity silicon in different grades of purity is used for growing silicon ingots, which are sliced to wafers in a process called wafering.
Compositionally pure polycrystalline silicon wafers are useful for photovoltaics.
Dislocation-free and extremely flat single-crystal silicon wafers are required in the manufacture of computer chips.
Polysilicon producers: Producers of high-purity silicon, an intermediate in the manufacture of polysilicon A partial list of major producers of wafers (made of high purity silicon, mono- or polycrystalline) includes: