Novel analyzer adds scientific edge to particle detection
Boston
William Reentz, a chemist at Bell Labs, the R&D arm of Lucent Technologies, says the particle detection process in semiconductor manufacturing is more like an art at the moment. However, he believes his recent invention could make it a science. Reentz has built an instrument that detects particles 100,000 times smaller than a pinhead or about one-thousandth of a micron. The experimental device, whose results have been demonstrated only in a lab setting, also sizes particles and determines their composition. Reentz is adapting the instrument for detecting and analyzing particles in the atmosphere. Bell is also considering using the instrument to perform trance analysis of particles in ultrapure liquids used in semiconductor and pharmaceutical manufacturing. — TGW