Pall showcases new technologies at SEMICON West 2008

At SEMICON West, in San Francisco, Pall unveiled its latest developments for semiconductor manufacturing, with six new products designed for efficiency, reduced cost of ownership and low environmental impact.

Chemical Filtration

A dynamic new chemical filtration technology, the FlexBowl™ filter vessel system, is an important advance for wet chemical processing. It is an eco-friendly, flexible system that allows process engineers to interchange disposable capsules and replaceable housings of varying sizes quickly, easily and safely. 

The key to the flexibility of this filter vessel system is its many options. The permanently installed, universal manifold accepts a variety of disposable capsules or a reusable filter housing. Available options include a choice of materials, vessel diameters and lengths. Users can now optimize flow rates, filter cartridge selection and costs to match changing process requirements as needed. 

UltiKleen™ SPM Kleen-Change® and UltiKleen SPM G2 Kleen-Change assemblies are completely disposable filter units .They are specifically designed with a proprietary all-fluoropolymer filter media for high temperature process chemicals, such as sulfuric acid/hydrogen peroxide mixtures (SPM). 

The filters are pretreated (acid-cleaned) to virtually eliminate metal extractables. These unique downstream-venting assemblies allow gas to be efficiently exhausted, thus eliminating reduced fluid flow and service life due to gas retained in the center support core.

Gas Purification

Pall’s new purifier assemblies for corrosive gases are the latest additions to their growing line of purification products. The new media removes moisture to < 50 ppb in HCl and HBr service.

Removal of moisture is critical in applications such as silicon wafer etching, as it leads to loss of etch rate uniformity. Both media are available in all standard purifier assembly configurations for process flow rates up to 1,000 standard liters per minute (slpm).

Photolithography Filtration and Purification

The 10 nm Asymmetric P-Nylon filter and the PhotoKleenTM EZD-3X filter assembly will be introduced at Semicon West for use in advanced photolithography chemistries.

The new PhotoKleen EZD-3X filter doubles the filter area of Pall’s standard PhotoKleen™ EZD-3 filters. The new filter is designed to fit existing installations, with less than half the existing pressure drop while maintaining the existing footprint. 

The PhotoKleen EZD-3X filters are available with three media types: PTFE (Polytetrafluoroethylene), HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) and nylon 6,6. The filter unit consists of a quick-disconnect head manifold and an HDPE capsule allowing for safe, quick, and easy filter changeouts. 

The new design permits finer filtration for reduced defectivity, or extended filter life to reduce photoresist waste during system start up.

CMP Filtration

A 1.5 micron rated filter has been added to the family of CMPure CMPD Series filters. All filters belonging to this series are advanced melt blown depth cartridges specifically designed for CMP slurry systems. They are compatible with metal (W, Cu, Al), oxide and STI slurries.

CMPD filters have a selective gradient pore structure for built-in prefiltration. Pall has improved their product offering to the CMP market by introducing a filter that has been specifically designed for the use with high solids silica CMP slurries. 

The CMPD 1.5 filter incorporates a proprietary media gradient that maximizes the filter’s ability to capture particles in a targeted size range while it minimizes the undesired retention of smaller sized particles that can lead to shortened filter life.

Pall Microelectronics is the global leader in filtration, separation and purification technologies for the electronics industry. Pall supports the solar energy, semiconductor, data storage, fiber optic, advance display, ink jet, and materials markets with a comprehensive suite of contamination control solutions.