How much silicon is consumed during thermal oxidation?
The amount of silicon consumed during oxidation is about 46% of the total thickness of the Oxide layer. For example: If you have a wafer that is 500um thick, and you grow 1um of thermal oxide on the surface, you are actually consuming about 4600A or .46um of the wafers thickness (per side) to create that 1um of oxide. If you then decided to remove that 1um layer of oxide, your 500um thick silicon wafer would become approximately 499.08um thick.
