Newcomer pulls out all the stops
09/01/2001
Chip industry start-up leaps into market with high-end facility
by Mark A. DeSorbo
A start-up semiconductor company usually doesn't have the financial wherewithal to pull out all the stops and build a cleanroom like those found at chip powerhouse Intel Corp., especially in a downturn.
 A look inside AmberWave's 6,000-square-foot ISO Class 5 cleanroom which is at the heart of the company's research and development. |
But according to Blake G. Hodess, president of Hodess Building Co. (North Attleboro, MA), his client AmberWave Systems (Salem, NH) did just that by anteing up $4 million to build a 6,000-square-foot ISO Class 5 (Class 100) cleanroom and renovating the remaining 19,000 square feet of the old 25,000-square-foot warehouse into office space.
Such a small cleanroom would normally call for a bay and chase arrangement; however, perhaps the most interesting part of the project was the installation of a raised floor access area.
"We actually cut out the existing concrete slab, and lowered it three feet to create a raised-access floor area for return air," Hodess says. "It is a bit unique because the cleanroom is so small, but they wanted it to look more like a high-end manufacturing fab like Intel would have. They opted to do the raised floor for better cleanliness, better insurance of cleanliness and better marketability."
"The facility will be the center of our research and development efforts for the next 10 years," says Ken Petrocelli, AmberWave's director of operations. "We need the cleanroom to be at that level because of the molecular sizes that we're working with. At an Intel facility, any particle is damaging. We're at the same level."
The company plans to lure big-name semiconductor companies with its proprietary technology, which is based on research conducted by AmberWave's founder, Dr. Eugene Fitzgerald, professor of material sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT; Cambridge).
"We're an intellectual property company, and the technology that we develop is for the initial stages of the wafer substrate," says Petrocelli, "The customers that we're targeting are the large foundries in the Far East."
AmberWave claims its technology will "turbo-charge" the silicon chip, propelling microprocessors, circuitry for multiplexing telecommunications and fiber-optic communications and lasers.
"The technology strains the silicon by changing the molecular structure of the silicon atoms, and by doing that you can increase electrical current that travels through it, which allows transistors to perform beyond their normal design capabilities," Petrocelli adds.
AmberWave, he says, also aims to be "fabless," meaning it will produce prototypes but leave mass production to "strategic partners or customers who license their designs."
Nothing spared
Ground broke on the project a year ago this month and was completed late winter of 2001.
Lloyd Architects (Plymouth, MA) designed the facility, while Am Tech Engineers Inc. (Stoughton, MA) designed the mechanical system for the entire facility. Hodess Building Co. served as the general contractor.
"We were pretty much on time. The original completion date was last December, but the tool manufacturer in Germany ran behind," Hodess says, adding that owner Mark Wolfe, president and chief scientist of AmberWave, has been hooking up tools ever since the project's completion.
Although there were no major problems with the project, the town of Salem, NH, insisted on gas-monitoring systems because of the gallium arsenide (GaAs), and indium phosphide (InP) that will be used within the facility.
"There are a lot of specialty gases, and the town would not let him start production until the gas monitoring system was complete and functioning," Hodess adds.
Aside from raised-access flooring and high-purity process piping for nitrogen and specialty gases, Hodess Building Co. also installed explosion-rated storage bunkers outside the building. The bunkers are ventilated and heated as well.
Because of the pyrophoric and toxic gases needed for processes, the cleanroom was enclosed with four-hour fire-rated partitions.
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"They had to create a hazardous production materials area (HPMA). There were a number of nasty gases in there and the HPMA limited the size of the cleanroom," Hodess explains, adding that walls are made of metal studs and four layers of sheet rock on each side, making them about 10 inches thick.
Aluminum honeycomb panels and two-inch rod-hung aluminum ceilings were also installed to cradle ULPA filters instead of HEPAs. "They wanted better insurance and lower particle count, so they went with ULPAs," Hodess adds.
An air-cooled chiller from Trane Co. (Lacrosse, WI) supplies the cleanroom with chilled water for processes and dehumidification. It also cools the plant. Make-up air units, also from Trane, supply the facility with outside air, while two custom-made vane-axial fans by HVAC-21, a Massachusetts company, re-circulates cleanroom air.
A steam boiler from Cleaver-Brooks (Milwaukee, WI) provides heating and humidification. The cleanroom is also outfitted with an 18-meg deionized water system from US Filter (Rockford, IL); waste-water treatment systems from Burt Process Equipment Inc. (Hamden, CT); compressors from The Atlas Copco Group (Stockholm, Sweden) that clean and dry air; and a process vacuum system for holding and transferring wafers onto chucks.
Positive air pressure within the cleanroom, Hodess says, is re-circulated and maintained at a temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit, plus or minus two degrees with an RH of 45 plus or minus two percent. Personnel wear full bunny suits and faces masks.
"This is a very high-end facility for a start-up," Hodess notes. AmberWave is targeting big semiconductor companies, so they went all out. They went as high-end as you can go."