Friday, September 26, 2008
2008 R&D 100 Winner
The job of creating electronic circuitry on semiconductor devices falls to a complex and expensive piece of machinery: the ion implanter. Built to place materials such as boron, phosphorous, and arsenic, ion implanters can easily clog with hazardous “dirt”. Removing the debris before a costly breakdown stops production (as often happens) usually means losing potentially four hours of production to manual scrubbing with hydrogen peroxide or running argon through the implanter. The job is much more easily accomplished by the AutoClean in situ ion implanter cleaning process, developed by ATMI, Danbury, Conn. Deceptively simple, the cylindrical cleaning device is attached to the implanter and run regularly. Loosely bonded xenon fluorine performs material removal, allowing fluorine atoms to create bonds with boron, phosphorous, and arsenic deposits to create gases. These are swept up by the AutoClean scrubber, eliminating the need to deal with solid waste. As added testimonial to its effectiveness, most major semiconductor companies are evaluating AutoClean in production environments less than a year after its introduction.
Technology
In situ ion implanter cleaning process
Developer
ATMI
