Semiconductor Equipment Manufacturers

Most companies producing ICs today have been quite lax in the quality control of the liquid chemicals used in their processes. These chemicals include acids, bases, buffered etches, photoresists, and organic solvents. Essentially, the producers of ICs have left the quality control of these materials to the chemical manufacturers. Specifications for chemicals are set by SEMI (Semiconductor Equipment Manufacturers International) and are generally met by all chemical manufacturers. The level of metallic contaminations that can exist in U.S. chemicals ranges from 0.1 to 1 ppm. If the levels of metallic impurities were actually this high, U.S. manufacturers would not be able to produce integrated circuits. 

In at least two industries, extensions have been made to the basic qualitative FMEA method to make it a three-dimensional numerical process. Publications on FMEA by a consortium of automobile manufacturers and by a group of semiconductor equipment manufacturing companies add a detection criterion to the FMEA process. A discussion of their publications follows. 

Semiconductor Manufacturing Companies FMEAs International SEMAT-ECH is a consortium of semiconductor equipment manufacturing companies from seven countries. Its Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) A Guide for Continuous Improvement for the Semiconductor Equipment Industry recommends another FMEA technique. This guidance is given in the Guide ... 

Until about the 1970s, much of the CVD equipment for semiconductor applications was designed and built in-house and a CVD equipment industry was still embryonic. Since then, there has been a considerable shift to standardized systems built by specialized equipment manufacturers particularly for the semiconductor industry, and today sophisticated production and test equipment is readily available. 

With the current technique, the ratio of PFC gas used in the process is only the order of %, and more than one half of the gas is discharged to the outside. Consequently, semiconductor manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, and gas manufacturers are trying to take various countermeasures to reduce the discharge. The methods fall into the following four broad general categories ... 

The compound semiconductor equipment market, while small compared to the Si-equipment market, is extremely competitive and volatile. Several equipment manufacturing companies have explored and subsequently exited the market. Presently the... 

True compound semiconductor production, in the Si sense of production, has only recently begun to come about with the introduction of large planetary systems and cluster tool compatible reactors [18]. Si equipment manufacturers have been reluctant to enter this niche market in force, and are generally unlikely to do so in the near future because of the small market size (—35-50 million dollars compared to the multi-billion dollar Si equipment markets, for example see Applied Materials sales). 

Environmental, Health, and Safety Guideline for Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment, SEMI S2-0200. Mountain View, CA Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International, 2001. 

MOSFET Metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration OEM Original equipment manufacturer... 

Water is the solvent that probably has the greatest number of documented grades of specifications. These include ACS (American Chemical Society), USP (United States Pharmacopoeia), ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials), and SEMI (Semiconductor Equipment and Materials Institute) specifications as well as more general specifications such as pyrogen-free. It is critical to ensure that the water used in a method meets the specifications demanded by the method. Since many of these organizations include tests that are non-standard with respect to high-purity HPLC solvent manufacturers, it is important to contact the manufacturer whenever it is unclear whether or not their water is suitable for the intended use. 

Cluster Tools. Many cleanroom processes can be combined into what is termed acluster tool. These are discrete functional modules linked to a central robot that allows the semiconductor device manufacturer to purchase one process tool that may perform dry etching, metallization and passivation in one piece of equipment. By 1995, cluster tools are expected to make up greater than 60% of the semiconductor thin-film processing equipment market. P ]... 

Other important guidelines for evaluating the acceptability of semiconductor processing equipment are issued by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI). SEMI S2-93-A, Product Safety Guidelines, is intended as a minimum set-of-performance based environmental health and safety requirements for equipment utilized in semiconductor manufacturing. ] These guidelines define minimum safety considerations manufacturers should adhere to when they sell process equipment. Some of the items included in S2-93-A are ... 

Beta test (semiconductor processing) The evaluation of equipment by an Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) under production conditions to determine what changes should be made before supplying the final version of the equipment to the user. 

Uses. The chemical inertness, thermal stability, low toxicity, and nonflammability of PFCs coupled with their unusual physical properties suggest many useflil applications. However, the high cost of raw materials and manufacture has limited commercial production to a few, small-volume products. Carbon tetrafluoride and hexafluoroethane are used for plasma, ion-beam, or sputter etching of semiconductor devices (17) (see loN implantation). Hexafluoroethane and octafluoropropane have some applications as dielectric gases, and perfluorocyclobutane is used in minor amounts as a dielectric fluid. Perfluoro-1,3-dimethyl cyclohexane is used as an inert, immersion coolant for electronic equipment, and perfluoro-2-methyldecatin is used for... 

Vacuum systems, largely for the semiconductor industry, are the main source of sales (see Semiconductors). The sales of all vacuum equipment, pumps (qv), valves, sensors (qv), etc, in the United States, including apphcations not in vacuum systems, generally exceed 500 X 10 /yr. A reasonably comprehensive hst of high vacuum manufacturers is supphed by the American Vacuum Society s exhibitor s hst. In Europe, a special issue of the journal A acuum serves similady. 

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