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- Embed this notice@deprecated_ii You do indeed need 7-10 nines purity to make a CPU at modern tiny process sizes.
At current process sizes, any impurities at all kills yields.
Older process sizes that used gates hundreds of micrometers in diameter work just fine out of silicon at lower purities, which is how the industry was bootstrapped.
Non-microprocessor applications tend to be more tolerant of impurities and crystal dislocations - solar panels work fine when made out of polycrystalline silicon for example.