Abstract: A wafer for synthesizing biopolymers which includes a solid phase support material, a reaction chamber which receives and retains the support material and at least one inert porous material which allows flow through the wafer. Also included is a segmented wafer synthesis device comprising at least one, and preferably numerous, wafers for the simultaneous synthesis of multiple defined-sequenced biopolymers. Further there are process steps for synthesizing a variety of biopolymers. Synthetic polynucleotides have played a key role in studies of genetic organization through their use as primers for DNA sequencing and as hybridization probes, linkers and adapters in the cloning of genes.