Purchasing silicon wafers
Purchasing silicon wafers
If you reached out to Intel or AMD, they would likely not sell you a usable silicon wafer from production. Even if they approved, you’d probably only be charged for shipping since it wouldn’t be worth keeping. They’re unlikely to charge you the full price of the wafer or its manufacturing costs.
They won’t sell anything that could harm them—especially their CPUs. If you were a reputable buyer or collector, there’s a real chance they’d be willing to trade. For now, as an individual, keep an eye on eBay or similar platforms (possibly dark web sites) and reach out to people involved in manufacturing, using, or disposing of those wafers.
it’s hard to picture ordinary silicon wafers being exploited by any organization. they’d need a very low purity level, which would likely result in discarding the material entirely—often the whole batch is thrown away. they probably process impure silicon through refining to eliminate contaminants before reusing it, at least that’s how it works.
It seems recycling a doped and etched die isn't feasible because of the numerous impurities present. At the very least, the process would be far more expensive than simply purifying raw silicon, including recovering both the material and the dopants.
You can try to use this information in any way you see fit, but there are no legal ways to copy their CPUs. Even if you could, it wouldn’t be allowed by law. As for selling one, there’s no guarantee they’d be interested or willing to sell it for any profit.