From Lab to the Fab - VOC Monitoring in the Semiconductor Industry

With the advancement in the production processes for microelectronics, Airborne Molecular Contamination (AMC) have started to become of significant concern for semiconductor manufacturers. As the produced structures have shrunk to nanometer scale, the sensitivity to damage by AMCs has dramatically increased. At the same time the production processes have become more complex and involve an increasing number of photolithographic and chemical processes with more and more chemicals. Therefore, the monitoring of AMC concentration in fabs and in micro environments (e.g. FOUPs) has been adopted by all leading-edge semiconductor manufacturers. 
A benchmark solution is IONICON’s AMC-Monitor offering sensitive, real-time analysis of AMCs. The possibility to monitor in seconds allows to capture transient events, to correlate emissions to activities in the fab, or to get a comprehensive overview by multiplex between different sampling points covering an entire fab. Applications are monitoring of cleanrooms, FOUPs, up- and downstream filter testing, fenceline monitoring for intake air quality and many more.
In a recent presentation at the UPM 2021 conference, Jens Herbig (CTO, IONICON) summarizes the advantages of this cutting edge technology.
Ultrapure Micro (UPM) organizes an annual conference on latest trends in high purity environments and micro contamination challenges within semiconductor fabrication facilities.