News Article
Bronkhorst unveils vapour delivery module
The process of silicon or thin film photovoltaic solar cells requires precise and reliable gas and vapour flow control. In PV and semicondutor production application, thermal mass flow meters or controllers are used for accurate, repeatable control of inert gases. These include nitrogen, hydrogen and argon. Based on a full scale, Bronkhorst's tools also handle reactive gases such as oxygen, carbon dioxide and silane and cover flow rates from 1 sccm to 6000 scfm. The firm's thermal mass flow sensors are used in combination with uniquely shaped laminar flow elements, offering high accuracy and excellent temperature stability. Instruments of its Select series can be offered with optional multi gas / multi range functionality. This option offers greater flexibility for user selection of both flow ranges and gas types, maintaining high accuracy and turndown range for measurement and control. Users of these instruments can rescale their instruments on site, saving time and money for mounting and dismounting. For the convenience of the user, Bronkhorst developed an easy-to-use software tool called FlowTune for changing the configuration of Select instruments. Besides gas flow instruments, Bronkhorst offers liquid flow meters/controllers for small flow ranges, from 75 mg/h up to 20 kg/h based on thermal mass flow sensors and up to 600 kg/h using Coriolis mass flow sensors. The mini CORI-FLOW Coriolis mass flow meters/controllers measure mass directly, not requiring any conversion factors, but also rescalable via a free software tool. What's more, the digital instruments offer density and temperature as secondary output. In Photovoltaic industry, these liquid flow meters are being applied for spray coating processes and for controlling liquid precursors to vapourising systems for CVD chambers. For the latter, Bronkhorst have developed a unique Vapour Delivery Module to realise mass flow control of vapours, based on the combination of gas and liquid flow meters. It can be applied for atmospheric, pressurised and vacuum processes, vaporising liquid flows from 0.25 to approximately 1200 g/h (depending on the fluid and process conditions). These vaporisers are ideally suited for vapour deposition and coating processes for the production of semiconductor chips, displays and solar cells. Many of the firm's instruments will be showcased at Intersolar North America 2013, taking place from July 9th to 11th, Moscone Centre San Francisco, Booth #8815. The systems are made to a customers' specification, in whichever style is suitable, for laboratory, industrial systems or OEM installations.
