MEI Announces Integrated Dryer With HCl and HF Injection Capability
MEI Wet Processing Systems and Services LLC (MEI) has announced an integrated high performance Marangoni dryer with HF and HCl injection for its automated wet processing systems, enabling gentle, cost effective wafer drying with lower particle counts.
Marangoni dryers enable high purity drying of semiconductor wafers during the computer chip manufacturing process. Modern chips for devices such as smartphones require ever smaller geometries with very low particle contamination. Their use has been limited because of the challenges of integration, and the high cost of N2 (Nitrogen gas) needed for production. MEI's Genesis Xi dryer enables multistep oxide or ionic cleaning with integrated wafer drying; this eliminates the air interface, producing superior surface conditioning for semiconductor processing. MEI's Genesis series of integrated Marangoni dryers use significantly less N2 and provide high drying performance in 7-20 minutes. "Our Genesis Marangoni dryers enable chemical oxide cleans before drying with no air interface and no damage to photoresist," says Product Marketing Manager Scott Tice. "We've achieved exceptional particle control, which is really meeting customer needs for improved yield."
The integrated Marangoni dryers are available immediately as an option in MEI's high performance fully automated "Evolution" wet processing systems and MEI's semi-auto "Revolution" batch wet processing systems.
