Gallagher Fluid Seals has added a new white paper to its Resources Page, Perfluoroelastomers for the Semiconductor Industry, written by Russ Schnell. Below is an excerpt from the new white paper. You can download it in its entirety by clicking on the thumbnail to the right.
The semiconductor industry, one of today’s major industries, produces integrated circuits (chips) which have found their way into everyday devices from toasters to smartphones to high speed computers. Integrated circuits are expected to perform operations faster and faster while attaining ever higher levels of reliability. As these chips become more complex and powerful the process for their manufacture becomes more complicated. Years ago a chip may have gone through 100 steps as underlying circuits were constructed. Now chips may go through more than 400 steps and the complexity of these circuits, and their capability, has greatly increased. This also results in more opportunities for problems during manufacture. Line widths, the width of the electrical pathways, have decreased in order to pack more capacity into each chip. This dictates that contaminants from the production equipment, gas streams, seals, etc., must be essentially eliminated to avoid contamination and chip malfunction.
As processes become more complex, the need for continuous evaluation of equipment quality and cleanliness increases. One part of this equipment that has received much attention is the elastomer seals which are critical for maintaining an airtight seal for many different processes in plasma, thermal and wet manufacturing applications. These processes include deposition, etching, and cleaning. Unfortunately the elastomer seals can be degraded by the aggressive chemicals in the manufacturing equipment. Further, as manufacturing processes raise temperatures and use more exotic chemicals to improve throughput, the elastomeric seals must continue to function without incident. Perfluoroelastomers (FFKMs) continue to see increased use due to their high temperature capabilities, low contamination and chemical resistance when compared to other elastomers. Product yield continues to be a major factor in chip production, hence a premium is placed on high performance elastomer seals as well as manufacturing equipment.
This paper will briefly review several specific semiconductor processes. The purpose is not to teach semiconductor chip manufacture, but rather to explain how and why perfluoroelastomers are used.
About the Author
Russell Schnell spent more than 37 years as an engineer with DuPont, the last 26 years as a Senior Application Engineer with the Kalrez® perfluoroelastomer parts business. Recognized for his expertise in elastomer applications, seal design and failure analysis, he provided technical support for a wide range of industries including: chemical processing, aerospace, oil and gas, pharmaceutical and semi-con. He created and conducted hundreds of training seminars and workshops in this field and was solely responsible for the development of the Kalrez® Application Guide software tool.
Russ received a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University in New York and MBA from the University of Delaware.
