This is one of the first books to cover the systematic growth of silicon single crystals and the complete evaluation of silicon wafers, from sand to useful wafers for device fabrication. Written for engineers and researchers in semiconductor fabrication industries, this essential reference describes techniques used to grow silicon single crystals, reviews methods to evaluate silicon wafers to determine suitability, examines the effect of intentional and unintentional impurities, explores defects found in regular silicon-crystal lattice, and discusses silicon wafer preparation for VLSI and ULSI processing.