FPM’s European SemiChem Newsletter

The new SemiChem Analyzer …the solution for the demanding applications of the semiconductor industry!!!

Since January '98 the new SemiChem analyzer is available, the analyzer concept has been adapted to the requirements of the semiconductor industry. The SemiChem Concentration Analyzer can measure quantitatively any acid or basic chemical component in the different wet chemical solutions used in the semiconductor industry.

Dimensions of Wet Chemical parts:

48.1 cm W * 34.0 cm D * 59.4 cm H

The electronics can be panel mounted in almost any location the customer desires

Dimensions of Electronics:

29.6 cm W * 25.3 cm D * 14.0 cm

These days cost reduction is the magic word in a lot of industries and also in the semiconductor industry. Every semiconductor fab needs to process as cheaply as possible and our SemiChem can help you to achieve this.

The wafer process is very complicated and there a lot of critical steps that are hard to control. One of the most critical steps is the dynamic process of etching, cleaning, and polishing, …

WHY on-line concentration monitoring?

5. Customer benefits brought by the SemiChem analyzer.

Payback ?

The major impact on the payback will come from the reduced chemical consumption and the increased yields (and reduced defect rate) . The optimal bath concentration allows the customer to run wafers in a bath for an optimal time. For instance, if wafers in a fresh bath are submerged for 10 minutes, and conditions stay optimal then all wafers can be submerged for 10 minutes. Most of the time, the second, third, fourth and fifth batches of wafers are submerged for longer and longer periods of time due to inactivity of the etching or cleaning components. So if today under current methods to run five batches it would take 75 minutes (10, 12, 15, 18, and 20 minutes per batch), then with the analyzer maintaining optimal bath conditions it will be possible to run five batches through in 50 minutes (fixed etch times: 10, 10, 10, 10, and 10 minutes). This means an increase in throughput of 50%, which is tremendous for this industry.

Reduction of the number of test wafers of 30-50 % will contribute to the payback taking in count the cost of the test wafer it self and the gain of valuable process time.

FPM Analytics … wet chemical process monitoring for the semiconductor industry… a division of MST Analytics Inc.

For more information on our wet chemical concentration analyzers contact FabTronics Ltd