Category Archives: MEMS

May 4, 2012 — Hanking Industrial Group Co., Ltd., broke ground on a micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) manufacturing campus in Fushun City, China, outside of Shenyang, in late March.

Photo. Yang Min, chairman of the board (fourth from left) led some executives of the Hanking Group to participate in the groundbreaking ceremony for a new MEMS fab.

The MEMS sensor manufacturing venture will lead the way for the company’s high-tech development strategy. Hanking Industrial is primarily a mining and metals processing company. Once completed, the Hanking Micro Electro Mechanical Sensor Industry Park project will bring in RMB 10 billion, and may form a local industry on the scale of RMB 100 billion, the company reports.

The industrial park is designed based on advanced, international standards, said Yang Min, chairman of the board. Late in 2011, Hanking MEMS’ leader Dr. Douglas Ray Sparks met with Wang Guifen, Mayor of Fushun City, Deputy Mayor Zhang Wenhui, director of Fushun Economic Development Zone Management Committee Dong Zebin, leaders of Municipal Science and Technology Bureau, Development and Reform Commission, and Foreign Trade and Economic Bureau, president of Hanking Group Yu Wenbo, president of Hanking MEMS Company Huang Xiangxiang, CFO of Hanking Group Li Yongshan, and Administrative and HR director Chen Zhe. The meeting covered the plan for the MEMS site and economic impact of the facility.

Hanking Industrial Group Co., Ltd. is active in mining, metallurgy, commerce, electronics, and precision manufacturing.Learn more at http://www.hanking.com/.

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May 3, 2012 – BUSINESS WIRE — Micropelt has raised EUR6.5 million for the roll-out and global expansion of its thin-film thermoelectric energy harvesting technology: EUR5 million by Ludgate Environmental Fund (LEF); EUR1 million from the Fund of Mitsubishi UFJ Capital (MUCAP); and EUR0.5 million by the existing shareholders IBG/Goodvent, KfW, L-Bank and SHS.

Micropelt’s thermal micro energy harvesting technology, which uses waste heat to create electricity, will be rolled out to high-growth cleantech markets globally, with focus in Europe and Japan. The microchip-sized device displaces batteries in automated equipment and has multiple domestic and industrial applications, such as radiator valves, industrial automation and remote monitors that assess the condition of equipment.

Bill Weil, CIO of Ludgate Investments Limited, the Investment Adviser to LEF, praised the elimination of battery maintenance and disposal.

Yoshihiro Hashimoto, president of Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co., Ltd., noted that consistent R&D positioned Micropelt for production of leading thermoelectric products.

Micropelt opened the thin-film thermoelectric production facility in June 2011 in Halle, Germany. Since then the company has been focused on increasing production volumes and reducing per unit cost. Fritz Volkert, CEO of Micropelt, said: "This investment provides Micropelt with a strong boost to our production capacity and the ability to drive the commercialization of our technology."

“After having opened their production site in 2011, the new investment round now enables Micropelt to expand globally,” said Hubertus Leonhardt, chairman of Micropelt’s supervisory board and Managing Partner of SHS Gesellschaft für Beteiligungsmanagement.

Micropelt has partnerships with major semiconductor players worldwide, and system integrators, in the field of industrial sensor equipment and intelligent radiator thermostats for heating systems. They also work with leading companies in the monitoring and maintenance of electronic distribution equipment. As part of the company’s global expansion and commercialization of its technology, Micropelt recently agreed on distribution relationships with Arrow in Europe, Tokyo Electronic Device and Hitachi High-Tech Materials Corporation in Japan.

Ludgate Environmental Fund invests in a diverse portfolio of late stage companies in the European cleantech sector. Actively managing its holdings, the Fund invests growth capital with a focus on waste and recycling; renewable energy; energy efficiency and water. Ludgate Environmental Fund launched in August 2007 and has assets under management of approximately £49.0 million as at 31 March 2012. The Fund is a Jersey domiciled closed-ended investment company, quoted on AIM under the symbols LEF.L for the shares and LEFW.L for the warrants. For more information www.ludgateenvironmental.com

Mitsubishi UFJ Capital (MUCAP) is VC arm of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, originally established in 1974 by Mitsubishi Group companies, manages multiple funds with total capital approximately $500M. MUCAP has made cross-border type investments with selected global syndication partnerships. In this field, MUCAP is focusing companies which offering or developing technologies, products, solutions or services relevant to the Japanese market or companies, especially in TMT & Life Science sector. Further information www.mucap.co.jp/english/profile.html

Micropelt GmbH is a developer, producer and marketer of the world’s smallest thermal energy harvesting chips. The thermoelectric micro chips are based on a patented and scalable thin-film technology which reduces component size while maximising power density. The chips scavenge free electric power from waste heat to replace or recharge batteries in wireless sensor networks and micro actuators. Based in Germany, Micropelt employs 23 staff and opened its first production facility in June 2011. For more information, www.micropelt.com

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May 2, 2012 — Dolomite and LioniX BV formed a partnership covering the design, development, fabrication, and distribution of microfluidic devices and systems.

LioniX B.V. will adopt Dolomite’s Multiflux standard in future chip designs, ensuring compatibility with Dolomite’s connectors and interfaces.

The companies will combine their microfluidics and microfabrication expertise, offering a range of innovative processes such as deep reactive-ion etch (DRIE) of fused silica down to an etch depth of 500um, plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) of silicon oxides and silicon nitrides, as well as the integration of metal electrodes and insulators into customized microfluidic chips and devices.

LioniX B.V. will become a distributor for Dolomite’s standard products, including microfluidic chips, pumps, connectors, valves, and accessories. LioniX standard products will be available via Dolomite’s microfluidic web shop.

LioniX B.V. co-develops, manufactures and supplies products and components based on cutting-edge micro/nano technology for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in life sciences, telecom, datacom, industrial process control and space. LioniX B.V. provides design to manufacturing and ‘horizontal integration’ by partnering with foundries, suppliers of complementary technologies and R&D institutes. The company specializes in applications of integrated optics, microfluidics and optofluidics including surface functionalization. LioniX B.V. offers small volume manufacturing, second sourcing, and transfer to medium and high volume manufacturing. For more information, visit www.lionixbv.nl.

Dolomite’s Microfluidic Application Centre helps turn microfluidic application concepts into commercial products. For more information, visit www.dolomite-microfluidics.com.

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May 2, 2012 — STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) will bring its micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) microphone and audio processing expertise to the European research project, Distant Speech Interaction for Robust Home Applications (DIRHA).

Over 3 years, DIRHA will investigate and prototype technologies to enable natural-voice interaction between humans and machines in future smart homes. The DIRHA program is organized into a number of work packages, spanning a total duration of 36 months, and the total cost of the project is 4.8 million euros. The main fields of research include multi-channel acoustic processing, distant-speech recognition and understanding, speaker identification/verification, and spoken-dialogue management in four languages: German, Greek, Italian, and Portuguese. The final prototypes will be integrated in pilot households and evaluated by real users.

Home environments present challenges with multiple noises and noise sources, and multiple speakers with which machines must interact. DIRHA aims to create a pervasive, always-listening sound space, where the system acoustically reaches out to the speaker, without a microphone in front of the speaker.

ST’s MEMS microphones suit distant-speech interaction systems because of their physical and acoustic parameters. The small form factor of MEMS microphones enable entire arrays to be embedded in walls, desks, or speech-enabled appliances around the home. The MEMS microphone design, paired with sophisticated signal-processing technologies, enable it to identify and capture acoustics from an individual speaker potentially several meters away, in a crowded room, with music playing, for example.

Distant-speech could benefit elderly or mobility-impaired members of a household, and the concept can be extended to use in robotics, telepresence, surveillance, and industry automation.

Other DIRHA participants include Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Italy (project coordinator); Athena Research and Innovation Center in Information Communication & Knowledge Technologies, Greece; DomoticArea, Italy; INESC ID – Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computatores, Investigacae e Desenvolvimento em Lisboa, Portugal; NewAmuser, Italy; and Technische Universitaet Graz, Austria. Learn more at http://dirha.fbk.eu.

ST is a global leader in the semiconductor market serving customers across the spectrum of sense and power technologies and multimedia convergence applications. Learn more at www.st.com.

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May 2, 2012 – PRNewswire — Audio test tool supplier Audio Precision (AP) released a pulse density modulation (PDM) audio interface option on its APx500 for direct I/O, modulation, and decimation for designers of micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) microphones and other PDM devices.

Learn more about the APx PDM interface here.

PDM is a one-bit, high rate data stream that conveys a signal by modulating the density of the pulses. AP’s PDM option supports 4th and 5th order modulation; interpolation ratios of 32, 64, 128, and 256; and the ability to analyze an undecimated PDM bitstream.

A 50x interpolation ratio will be available in Summer 2012.

The PDM option includes a built-in power supply for devices under test (DUT), and can directly measure power supply rejection (PSR) in PDM devices. Users must have APx500 v3.0 software, which may be downloaded free of charge.

AP’s audio test instrument APx500 also includes a new PESQ software option for fully automated testing of speech quality with any audio interface, generating MOS (Mean Opinion Score) results. The APx PESQ software option allows the results of many tests to averaged, and may be used with any audio interface, including analog, DSIO, Bluetooth and PDM. In addition to support for PDM and PESQ, APx500 v3.0 enhances the DSIO (Digital Serial In/Out) with support for up to 16 channels of TDM at 96 kHz, variable TDM word length and accommodations for TDM variations used in a wide range of DSP products.

Audio Precision makes audio test instruments and applications. For more information, visit http://ap.com/.

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Since 2008, there have been more objects connected to the Internet than peeople in the world and this figure will hit 50 billion by 2020, according to Libelium, a wireless sensor networks platform provider. The company has released a list of 54 sensor applications for a smarter world, covering the most disruptive sensor and “internet of things” applications.

Their list is grouped in 12 different verticals, showing how the internet of things is becoming the next technological revolution. It includes the trendiest scenarios, such as smart cities where sensors can offer services such as smart parking – to find free parking spots in the streets– or managing the intensity of the luminosity in street lights to save energy. Climate change, environmental protection, water quality or CO2 emissions are also addressed by sensor networks.

Other sections such as industrial control, logistics or retail cover applications more focused in process efficiency like providing information for restocking the shelves and even product placement for marketing purposes. The list is completed with applications in the verticals of smart metering, security and emergencies, smart agriculture, animal farming, domotic and home automation and eHealth.

“Now we are able to collect data everywhere from our environment, infrastructures, businesses and even ourselves, and this huge amount of information is generating a new ecosystem of business opportunities around its storage, analysis and accessibility” says Libelium’s CEO Alicia Asín. “We want this document to inspire people and companies with all the opportunities around the Internet of Things era,” she added.

Smart Cities

1.  Smart parking:  Monitoring of parking spaces availability in the city.

2. Structural health: Monitoring of vibrations and material conditions in buildings, bridges and historical monuments.

3. Noise urban maps: Sound monitoring in bar areas and centric zones in real time.

4. Traffic congestion: Monitoring of vehicles and pedestrian levels to optimize driving and walking routes.

5. Smart lightning: Intelligent and weather adaptive lighting in street lights.

6. Waste management: Detection of rubbish levels in containers to optimize the trash collection routes.

7. Intelligent transportation systems: Smart Roads and Intelligent Highways with warning messages and diversions according to climate conditions and unexpected events like accidents or traffic jams.

Smart Environment

8. Forest fire detection: Monitoring of combustion gases and preemptive fire conditions to define alert zones.

9. Air pollution: Control of CO2 emissions of factories, pollution emitted by cars and toxic gases generated in farms.

10. Landslide and avalanche prevention: Monitoring of soil moisture, vibrations and earth density to detect dangerous patterns in land conditions.

11. Earthquake early detection: Distributed control in specific places of tremors.

Smart Water

12. Water quality: Study of water suitability in rivers and the sea for fauna and eligibility for drinkable use.

13. Water leakages: Detection of liquid presence outside tanks and pressure variations along pipes.

14. River floods: Monitoring of water level variations in rivers, dams and reservoirs.

Smart Metering

15. Smart grid: Energy consumption monitoring and management.

16. Tank level: Monitoring of water, oil and gas levels in storage tanks and cisterns.

17. Photovoltaic installations: Monitoring and optimization of performance in solar energy plants.

18. Water flow: Measurement of water pressure in water transportation systems.

19. Silos stock calculation: Measurement of emptiness level and weight of the goods.

Security and Emergencies

20. Perimeter access control: Access control to restricted areas and detection of people in non-authorized areas.

21. Liquid presence: Liquid detection in data centers, warehouses and sensitive building grounds to prevent break downs and corrosion.

22. Radiation levels: Distributed measurement of radiation levels in nuclear power stations surroundings to generate leakage alerts.

23. Explosive and hazardous gases: Detection of gas levels and leakages in industrial environments, surroundings of chemical factories and inside mines.

Retail

24. Supply chain control: Monitoring of storage conditions along the supply chain and product tracking for traceability purposes.

25. NFC payment: Payment processing based in location or activity duration for public transport, gyms, theme parks, etc.

26. Intelligent shopping applications: Getting advices in the point of sale according to customer habits, preferences, presence of allergic components for them or expiring dates.

27. Smart product management
Control of rotation of products in shelves and warehouses to automate restocking processes.

Logistics

28. Quality of shipment conditions: Monitoring of vibrations, strokes, container openings or cold chain maintenance for insurance purposes.

29. Item location: Search of individual items in big surfaces like warehouses or harbours.

30. Storage incompatibility detection: Warning emission on containers storing inflammable goods closed to others containing explosive material.

31. Fleet tracking: Control of routes followed for delicate goods like medical drugs, jewels or dangerous merchandises.

Industrial Control

32. M2M applications: Machine auto-diagnosis and assets control.

33. Indoor air quality: Monitoring of toxic gas and oxygen levels inside chemical plants to ensure workers and goods safety.

34. Temperature monitoring: Control of temperature inside industrial and medical fridges with sensitive merchandise.

35. Ozone presence: Monitoring of ozone levels during the drying meat process in food factories.

36. Indoor location: Asset indoor location by using active (ZigBee) and passive tags (RFID/NFC).

37. Vehicle auto-diagnosis: Information collection from CanBus to send real time alarms to emergencies or provide advice to drivers.

Smart Agriculture

38. Wine quality enhancing: Monitoring soil moisture and trunk diameter in vineyards to control the amount of sugar in grapes and grapevine health.

39. Green houses: Control micro-climate conditions to maximize the production of fruits and vegetables and its quality.

40. Golf courses: Selective irrigation in dry zones to reduce the water resources required in the green.

41. Meteorological station network: Study of weather conditions in fields to forecast ice formation, rain, drought, snow or wind changes.

42. Compost: Control of humidity and temperature levels in alfalfa, hay, straw, etc. to prevent fungus and other microbial contaminants.

Smart Animal Farming

43. Offspring care: Control of growing conditions of the offspring in animal farms to ensure its survival and health.

44. Animal tracking: Location and identification of animals grazing in open pastures or location in big stables.

45. Toxic gas levels: Study of ventilation and air quality in farms and detection of harmful gases from excrements.

Domotic and Home Automation

46. Energy and water use: Energy and water supply consumption monitoring to obtain advice on how to save cost and resources.

47. Remote control appliances: Switching on and off remotely appliances to avoid accidents and save energy.

48. Intrusion detection systems: Detection of windows and doors openings and violations to prevent intruders.

49. Art and goods preservation: Monitoring of conditions inside museums and art warehouses.

eHealth

50. Fall detection: Assistance for elderly or disabled people living independent.

51. Medical fridges: Control of conditions inside freezers storing vaccines, medicines and organic elements.

52. Sportsmen care: Vital signs monitoring in high performance centers and fields.

53. Patients surveillance: Monitoring of conditions of patients inside hospitals and in old people’s home.

54. Ultraviolet radiation: Measurement of UV sun rays to warn people not to be exposed in certain hours.

 

Contributing editor Steve Groothuis reviews a book titled “Energy Harvesting for Autonomous Systems (Smart Materials, Structures, and Systems).” The book is by Stephen Beeby (Author, Editor), and Neil White (Editor).

Enhancing energy and power capacity in industrial, mobile, and consumer devices may be the inflection point in guiding energy harvesting from a specialty market into the mainstream consumer market.  Energy harvesting is can be viewed as a practical approach to powering autonomous systems.

This book highlights the progression from the basic principles behind energy harvesting to the comprehensive systems that control the sensing, actuation, and transmission of those devices.  The basic principles include solid state physics, mechanics, chemistry, electronics, and general engineering.

The authors develop detailed discussions of the options for “harvesting energy from localized, renewable sources (e.g., photovoltaic, kinetic, thermoelectric) and their supply of power to autonomous wireless devices and systems”. The reader is exposed to various types of autonomous system and wireless networks which may not be apparent from and energy harvesting perspective.

The book focuses on the most promising harvesting techniques, including solar, kinetic, and thermal energy.  The reader will also learn the implications of the energy harvesting techniques on the design of the power management electronics in a system. This book is a comprehensive guide and discusses each energy-harvesting devices/systems with a high resolution.  The authors are aware enough to mention the pros and cons of their approaches and the similarities and differences between competing energy harvesting systems.

In order for these autonomous systems to be successful, one needs to understand the need for a high—efficiency energy storage (e.g., microbatteries and supercapacitors), a robust power management, lower power dissipation to the environment for maximizing the system’s viable in today’s energy market.

In the final chapter, a contributing author (Neil Grabham) pulls together a case study with all of the key careabouts in constructing a complete system for harvesting energy and using it in productive systems.  From designing hardware and software to developing a more intelligent system that is energy-aware, the reader can leverage all of the details from the previous chapters to draft a simple to more complex autonomous system for harnessing energy harvesting devices.  With recommendations on choice of microprocessors, reasoning of energy storage modules, and energy management schemes, the imminent success of designing, developing, and manufacturing such a autonomous system is ensured.

The book provides a distinguished list of contributing authors, a healthy number of references at the end of each chapter, and a sizeable number of schematics and diagrams to help the reader visually.  The book separates itself from other similar works by reiterating the unified theme of structuring communication hardware, energy management, and intelligent sensing throughout the entire book.  Pulling this theme off with multiple contributing authors is a sign of great editors wanting the reader to focus on the essentials of Energy Harvesting for Autonomous Systems.

About the reviewer: Steve Groothuis started his career at Texas Instruments in Dallas, TX in 1983 as a Package Technologist.  He worked on both sustaining and new package development projects.  His major focuses at that time were: package reliability, package simulation, and design for manufacturability.  Prior to leaving TI, he was TI’s Advanced Semiconductor Packaging Lab Manager with a diverse engineering staff. In 1997, he was a Multiphysics Industry Specialist for ANSYS, Inc., defining Computer-Aided Engineering simulation software market plans, strategic accounts management, electronics packaging, MEMS initiatives, and product development for the electronics industry.

From 2000-2008, his responsibilities started as Senior Package Engineer and evolved to Technology CAD  & Analysis Manager in the Process R&D Department at Micron Technology.  His responsibilities included working with device and process simulations for new cell designs, supporting most aspects of semiconductor package simulations, and assessing new technology.

From 2008-2011, he was a Principal Consulting Engineer with SimuTech Group, Inc. He was actively involved in developing & winning new business opportunities in CAE consulting projects. His efforts are focused on markets such as semiconductors, MEMS, semiconductor packaging license litigation, and Alternate Energy. Mr. Groothuis returned to Micron Technology as a Sr. MTS and Simulation Group Manager focused on 3DI package development, Hybrid Memory Cube, Emerging Memory technologies, and wafer-level manufacturability & reliability.

April 30, 2012 — Mobile augmented reality and location-based services will be powered by more than 4 billion micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) sensor devices — accelerometers; gyroscopes; magnetometers; pressure, humidity, and temperature sensors — by 2016, reports Juniper Research in “MEMS in Mobile.”

These inertial or motion sensors are already standard components in smartphones, tablets, and other mobile electronics, accounting for much of the MEMS device market volume. Annual revenues generated by MEMS devices built into mobile phones — sensor, audio, display, and RF uses — will exceed $6 billion by 2016.

Through 2016, MEMS will be integrated increasingly into these mobile devices, differentiating mobile device manufacturers with new capabilities and functionalities.

However, unit prices for MEMS devices are declining rapidly, reaching a lowest possible price point over the medium term in the next few years. MEMS sensor devices will witness a declining revenue share in the market (reaching 60% in 2016), as other categories including Audio & RF begin to contribute towards the total.

Vendors need guaranteed sales volumes to commit to price reductions, which will keep some newer application areas in flux.

Accelerometers and gyroscopes saw dramatic price reductions over the past few years, said Nitin Bhas, author of MEMS in Mobile. “Vendors need to create or add value to their products by incorporating more functions into a single MEMS device, thereby further reducing size, complexity, and cost.”

Also read: MEMS for mobile electronics

Access the report: MEMS the Word in Mobile. Juniper Research provides research and analytical services to the global hi-tech communications sector, providing consultancy, analyst reports and industry commentary.

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April 30, 2012 — Analog semiconductor maker SiTime Corporation has shipped 100 million units of its micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS), including oscillators, clock generators and resonators. More than 800 electronics companies have adopted SiTime’s silicon MEMS timing components, in more than 100 applications.

MEMS oscillators currently represent <1% of the total ($6.3 billion) timing market, but potential growth in this sector is attracting new entrants and investment, said research firm Semico. Semico reports that MEMS oscillator growth is driven by increased penetration into high-growth applications.

MEMS oscillators are an alternative to the established quartz crystal oscillator technology, offering performance and reliability improvements, smaller form factor, lower cost, and lower power usage than quartz devices, adds Semico. Silicon-based timing technology enables better performance than conventional quartz-based components, as well as more flexibility and higher reliability, said Rajesh Vashist, CEO of SiTime. “SiTime’s MEMS timing products are up to 500 times more reliable than quartz oscillators.”

The company’s MEMS components today offer 250x better stability and jitter than its first product in 2007, Vashist added. SiTime’s initial research and technology came from Bosch labs and Stanford University.

Also read: MEMS resonators vs. crystal oscillators for IC timing circuits

SiTime Corporation, an analog semiconductor company, offers MEMS-based silicon timing solutions that replace legacy quartz. SiTime uses standard semiconductor processes and high volume plastic packaging. Internet: http://www.sitime.com.

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April 27, 2012 — MEI makes batch immersion equipment for cleaning, etching, and developing microelectronics wafers, including silicon and gallium arsenide, as well as process control equipment and automation software. The PVC materials used to make process tools influence tool performance, safety in the fab, and chip quality. Semiconductor and solar are two of the most materials-/contamination-sensitive manufacturing sectors. MEI uses Vycom Flametec PVC-C for chemical rinse tanks and other wafer-contacting elements of its process tools, reducing tool-based contamination and protecting fab workers.

Figure 1. The dual robots of the MEI Advancer Gemini, dual robot semi-auto wet bench.

Many MEI wet bench tools take dry wafers and move them — using robotic arms (see Figure 1) — through chemical and rinse tanks, then to an IPA-style dryer. MEI uses Vycom Flametec PVC-C, a fire-retardant, chemical and moisture-resistant material, to build the housing (shell) of its wet process systems, the robotic arm ends, chemical rinse tanks, and conveyances for automated dry-to-dry wet bench acid process immersion tools. “We use some non-4910 material, called Protec, for tanks and valve boxes, but for the bulk of our batch immersion wet benches for acid type process we rely on PVC-C,” said Bill McGinty, MEI operations manager.

Figure 2. MEI’s Advancer Micro semi-automated wet bench. Detail: the back of the Advancer Micro.

Wet process chemicals can be punishing to the equipment and its internal components. Older bench-construction materials were brittle, difficult to weld, and had color matching issues, said McGinty. An inherently clean material, PVC-C is resistant to bacteria, reducing contamination opportunities. It is abrasion resistant and easy to clean, reducing particulate contamination created from internal tool components rubbing together. Tool-created contamination can compromise the wafer bath and enable corrosion or contamination of tool components from wafer-processing chemicals.

Flametec PVC-C is also ANSI FM-4910 compliant, passing the Factory Mutual test for fire propagation and smoke density. Contamination from smoke particulates and toxicity can damage chips and endanger workers in the fab.

To build its automated wet processing systems housings and tanks, MEI starts with 5 x 8 and 5 x 10 PVC-C sheets, using multiple CNC router tables up to 10 feet long to cut and shape them according to designs made in SolidWorks. MEI obtains its PVC-C raw material — tens of thousands of pounds per year — through a stocking program with Vycom’s distributors.

Figure 3. MEI’s flagship MEI Evolution fully automated wet processing system.

Thermoplastic welds must be strong and precise to prevent leaks and contamination in the fab tool. PVC welders complete an apprentice program at MEI to learn timing, technique, pressure, and angle skills. After a year of training, welders are qualified to build the wet plenum — the tank area below the tool where chemicals and water drain — the most sensitive wet bench tool component.

Figure 4. MEI Revolution rotary, semi-auto wet processing system. Photos courtesy of Garry Myers, MEI LLC.

MEI is a semiconductor process tool supplier. The company also develops process control equipment and automation software, and provides field service, repair, and retrofits on used equipment. Learn more at http://meillc.com/semiconductor-wet-benches.

More on preventing tool contamination: Entegris builds advanced filtration and contamination control R&D center for 2X, 1X semiconductor fab

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