Praxair expands process gas production capacity

Danbury, CT

Praxair, Inc. has increased production of its existing semiconductor process gases, added 16 new products, and adopted simplified product purity designations. At its Kingman, AZ, facility, the company has increased production of phosphine by 100 percent, arsine by 50 percent. Standardized designations are being adopted to denote product purity levels among its semiconductor gases, which are typically in the parts-per-million and parts-per-billion range. For example, ultra-high-purity nitrogen (99.9999 percent pure) will be referred to as 6.0 grade, correlating to the number of “nines” in the classification. When product purities end with digits other than nine, the number farthest to the right of the decimal point governs: i.e., 99.995 percent would be referred to as 4.5 grade. — SES