A Si wafer, or substrate, or silicon is grown in a tube from a seed into a long ingot that is then sliced into various thicknesses used in electronics for the fabrication of integrated circuits and in photovoltaics. The wafer serves as the substrate for microelectronic devices built in and over the wafer and undergoes many microfabrication process steps such as doping or ion implantation, etching, deposition of various materials, and photolithographic patterning. Finally the individual microcircuits are separated (dicing) and packaged.