Precision sealing for advanced semiconductor manufacturing: Greene Tweed leads the way

The semiconductor industry is poised to double to $1 trillion in six years, putting pressure on manufacturers to scale up. As a global leader in FFKM Chemraz® sealing solutions, Greene Tweed knows that second-best seals won’t cut it in an industry as complex and challenging as semiconductor manufacturing. Discover how the company is stepping up its game to ensure that chipmakers have everything they need to thrive in this era of unprecedented growth.

Historians could call the 2020s the ‘new Roaring 20s’ — the decade of artificial intelligence (AI). The AI boom started when the world woke up to the promise of generative AI. Momentum is building as 2024 is promising to be the year of adoption for several AI applications. McKinsey research shows that the trend will continue, and generative AI could enable automation of up to 70 percent of business activities by 2030, adding trillions of dollars in value to the global economy.

These AI applications and their insatiable demand for data heavily rely on semiconductors for processing and storage. Unsurprisingly, McKinsey expects the global semiconductor market to double to $1 trillion by 2030, raising the stakes for manufacturers who need to scale up to keep up with the demand. On top of that, the growth in AI is also pushing them toward more powerful smaller processor nodes so that they can fit more increasingly complex transistors on a single chip, resulting in more intricate designs.

This complexity translates to more advanced manufacturing processes with harsher conditions. Manufacturing processes often require extremely high temperatures and aggressive chemicals and harsh plasmas, posing significant risks to materials and components in the equipment. The entire operation occurs in cleanrooms where even microscopic particles of dust or slight chemical contaminant can cause defects and compromise the performance and reliability of the chip being made.