Versum Materials, Inc. (NYSE: VSM), a materials supplier to the semiconductor industry, announced today the grand opening of its new research and development (R&D) facility at its semiconductor materials manufacturing site in Hometown, Pennsylvania. The ribbon-cutting ceremony took place April 10, 2018. Versum employees, members of the community, local government, customers and strategic partners attended the event.
The R&D laboratory is dedicated to new materials used in the manufacture of semiconductors. Scientists in the facility will synthesize and purify new molecules down to parts per billion impurity levels and below using the latest technologies available in the industry. The researchers can assess the applications for these new molecules and scale up the molecules to larger quantities for customer evaluation. These new organometallic compounds will be deposited on semiconductor wafers through cutting-edge technologies to test their performance for semiconductor applications. Additionally, the facility is capable of small-volume manufacturing and advanced analytical and quality assessment.
State Senator Dave Argall commended Versum for being the region’s third largest employer and for the company’s investments in the local community. Approximately 30 employees, half of which hold advanced degrees in chemistry or chemical engineering, are based in the new facility. The company’s Hometown campus now totals 250 highly-skilled employees.
The latest expansion is part of a $60MM multi-year investment in the Hometown campus. Last year the company announced it had increased production capacity and modified equipment configuration to reduce manufacturing bottlenecking. Versum’s Hometown manufacturing facility produces a variety of high purity specialty gases and chemicals for semiconductor manufacturers around the world, including Tungsten Hexafluoride, WF6 and Nitrogen Trifluoride, NF3. WF6 is used as a metallization source for the formation of tungsten interconnects between multiple layers in semiconductor devices. It is an important material in the production of both logic and memory (DRAM and NAND) devices. NF3 is primarily used for chamber cleaning of chemical vapor deposition reactors.
Versum’s Senior Vice President of Materials, Ed Shober addressed the attendees stating, “We enable the largest tech companies around the world to stretch the boundaries of science and technology, whether it be supporting computing power, mobility, connectivity, artificial intelligence, virtual/augmented reality, the Internet of Things, Big Data and machine learning. Versum Materials is at the core of enabling all these technologies. Our Versum Materials team delivers valued products and solutions that bring this cutting-edge innovation to the market safer, faster, easier and more reliably than ever before.”