Atotech’s new clean rooms for semiconductor production

Citation

(2013), "Atotech’s new clean rooms for semiconductor production", Microelectronics International, Vol. 30 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/mi.2013.21830baa.009

Atotech’s new clean rooms for semiconductor production

Article Type: New products From: Microelectronics International, Volume 30, Issue 2

With the development of new markets and new customer needs, Atotech moves ahead as well. This includes setting up clean rooms at its worldwide TechCenter locations. The new clean room for flat panel display (FPD) and semiconductor (SC) manufacturing equipment in Feucht, Germany, is the latest addition. The first FPD-Line will be engineered and produced there in 2013. Further clean rooms around the world, mainly for sample plating, will follow.

Clean room facilities for sample plating have already been established in Jangan, South Korea, Yokohama, Japan, Berlin, Germany, and Guanyin, Taiwan. A clean room for chemicals production is in use in Neuruppin, Germany, since 2008. And Atotech’s R&D Center for copper interconnect technology is working closely with and at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) in Albany, New York, USA, which provides over 86,000 ft² of clean room and analytical labs with a complete line of cutting-edge 300 mm semiconductor manufacturing and R&D equipment.

What is a clean room?

A clean room is a highly purified and regulated room, mainly for the handling of equipment which is highly sensitive to any contamination. The air in a clean room is constantly filtered, since the smallest amount of dust could create flaws in the production. Temperature, humidity and pressure are, amongst others, also strictly regulated. Clean rooms are rated according to the International Standards Organization (ISO). An ISO 1 clean room, for example, allows only 12 particles per cubic meter of 0.3 μm. Compared to this, for example, the typical urban air contains 35,000,000 particles per cubic meter of 0.5 μm or larger.

Why a clean room?

Atotech is constantly striving to optimize its customer service. As a result, Atotech continuously invests in three different kinds of clean rooms:

1. 1.

   clean rooms for the production of chemicals;

2. 2.

   clean rooms for manufacturing semiconductor equipment; and

3. 3.

   clean rooms for sample plating for customers

Each clean room requires a different ISO class level, depending on its purpose and the material handled in it. The clean room in Feucht for manufacturing equipment, for example, is an ISO class 8 clean room.

The investment in clean rooms is growing in importance. Not only because, amongst others, purity levels of the plating chemistry significantly contribute to plated copper properties, but also because metallization technologies used in MEMS (micro-electro mechanical systems) and semiconductor applications are increasingly becoming a standard in the industry.

Challenges involved

The challenges involved in setting up a clean room for production equipment are multi-fold. According to David Lichtenauer, Sales Manager Electronic Systems at Atotech Deutschland GmbH in Feucht, Germany: “Existing production processes need to be re-thought and adjusted, new tasks need to be handled, new approaches need to be considered, and new technical solutions need to be developed.” New suppliers of materials and consumables are also needed. They need to be able to provide goods which are compatible with the required air cleanliness class.

“Building the Clean Room comes with yet another set of challenges,” states David Lichtenauer. “For our Clean Room (CR), class ISO 8, we need a relative CR humidity of at least 30% and a CR temperature of 19-25°C. With a production area of 1,800 m², we quickly reach a budget of nearly four million Euro.”

Training

In addition, customers and technicians need to be trained. Technicians need to acquire new qualifications needed for working in a clean room. Customers, too, need to be trained on the correct equipment maintenance procedures as contaminations are not allowed. Employees and customers alike, for example, need to know how to bring in components from the “black area” through the washing area into the clean room.

For more information please visit: www.atotech.com