Ensights

Entegris recently wrapped up an exciting week at the first-ever SEMICON West virtual event. The event provided a great opportunity to connect with the community and gain valuable insight into the future of the industry.

Entegris is excited to celebrate the 50th anniversary of SEMI by coming together for the landmark virtual event to reaffirm our commitment to creating unique value for our customers and partners.

Photochemicals are playing an increasingly important role in bringing next generation devices to reality. While semiconductor manufacturing has always needed a pure, contamination-free environment, the requirements are tightening even further.

DRAM architecture has remained virtually unchanged for the past decade, with the dimensions shrinking proportionally with each successive device node. This linear path, however, is reaching its limits for nodes below 20 nanometers (nm) including 1x, 1y, 1z, 1a, and 1b. A major change will be needed soon if DRAM is to keep up with advances in logic.

The rapid increase of semiconductors in cars enables significant safety, connectivity, mobility, and sustainability improvements. The standards to measure reliability under the tough conditions a car presents are based on how vehicles operate today. Conventional vehicles are generally idle 95% of the time. As a result, the expected lifetime of the electronics systems is well beyond the lifetime of the vehicle itself.

To meet increasing sensitivity to contaminants in integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing, semiconductor fabs have begun looking to their chemical suppliers to adopt new contamination control standards that improve quality and assist in reducing wafer defects. Each material has several touch points along the chemical manufacturing, storage, transport, and delivery journey that could add or generate contaminants. Semiconductor fabs seek assurance from their materials suppliers that they will minimize opportunities for contaminants to end up on a wafer (Figure 1).

The automotive supply chain is transforming with the development of autonomous vehicles. The rise of electronic systems leads designers and manufacturers to seek collaboration partnerships. Antoine Amade, senior director EMEA/NA sales, was recently interviewed by SEMI to discuss the zero-defect challenges facing semiconductor fabs and the expansion of the GAAC (Global Automotive Advisory Council).

During the semiconductor manufacturing process, contamination can be introduced from the air, equipment, cleanroom personnel, process water, process chemicals, and process gases.1 Careful identification of the contaminant source is required to best identify mitigation strategies that utilize filtration. Installing a filter can reduce defectivity, but this mitigation strategy will not indefinitely protect a gas stream from contamination.

Dewetting and non-dewetting are not common terms used every day, yet are vital to the functionality of liquid filters.

Entegris Highlights 2019 2019 was a year of exciting change and significant accomplishments for Entegris including strategic acquisitions, supplier awards, footprint expansions and technology center openings, sustained Five+ Sigma quality levels, hundreds of issued technology patents, and so much more!

Wetting the membrane is an important first step in preparing your filter. Wetting the membrane pores eliminates dry pathways where contaminants, like particles, gels, or bubbles could pass through, resulting in high defect levels in your process. Polymer membranes are natively hydrophobic or hydrophilic.

What should you look for in a materials supplier to ensure quality, reliability and safety? Listen as Entegris' Sandrine Felix, senior manager, solutions marketing, interviews Neil Richards, senior VP, global operations & supply chain, to get his perspective on what it takes to be a world-class specialty materials supplier.