The Challenges of Traditional Semiconductor Cleaning

In the world of semiconductor production, cleanliness isn't just a preference; it's a fundamental requirement. Even the slightest contamination can compromise product integrity, resulting in costly defects and reduced yields.

Semiconductor manufacturing equipment must be kept meticulously clean. Even microscopic particles or chemical residues can cause catastrophic defects in integrated circuits, leading to yield losses that cost manufacturers.

Traditional cleaning methods often present a paradox. While aiming for cleanliness, they introduce their own set of challenges: the use of hazardous chemicals, the generation of secondary waste, and significant downtime. Other drawbacks include:

• Costly Downtime: Disassembling equipment for cleaning is a time-consuming process, leading to reduced production efficiency.
• Chemicals and Solvents: The reliance on harsh chemicals and solvents poses risks to both product purity and worker safety.
• Hazardous Waste Disposal: The byproducts of chemical cleaning often require complex and expensive hazardous waste disposal procedures.
• Employee Exposure: Workers may be exposed to hazardous chemicals, posing potential health risks.

What Makes Dry Ice Blasting Unique?

Enter dry ice blasting: a cleaning method that is rapidly becoming the gold standard for decontamination in the semiconductor industry. This innovative process leverages the power of solid CO2 (dry ice) to deliver an exceptionally pure, effective, and environmentally responsible clean.

Dry ice precision cleaning directly addresses these challenges, offering a highly effective and efficient alternative for decontaminating semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Here's why it stands out:

• Non-Abrasive and Gentle: Dry ice is non-abrasive on a wide range of sensitive substrates, including metals, ceramics, Teflon, graphite, aluminum, stainless steel, quartz, copper, and various plastics. This means it can quickly remove surface contaminants from even the most delicate areas without causing damage.
• No Secondary Waste Stream: Unlike water blasting or chemical cleaning, dry ice sublimes upon impact, meaning it turns directly from a solid into a gas. This eliminates the creation of a secondary waste stream, simplifying disposal and reducing environmental impact.
• Clean in-Place Capabilities: Dry ice blasting allows for cleaning in-place, significantly reducing the need for lengthy disassembly and reassembly, thereby minimizing costly downtime.
• Environmentally Responsible: With no chemicals, solvents, or water used, dry ice blasting is an inherently environmentally friendly cleaning method, contributing to better ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) scores.
• Enhanced Safety: Eliminating the use of hazardous chemicals and minimizing manual scrubbing significantly improves worker safety.
• Faster and More Effective: The process is aggressive enough to quickly remove stubborn deposition and contamination, ensuring a thorough clean in a shorter timeframe.
  

Key Applications in Semiconductor Manufacturing:

Dry ice cleaning equipment can assist your semiconductor manufacturing process in numerous critical areas:

• Cleaning fixtures after plasma coating processes for microchips and PCB boards
• Removing debris from laser-cut microchip edges
• Cleaning alloy dies used to manufacture microchip carrier tapes
• Cleaning molds and dies after the microchip molding process
• Cleaning PCB boards after welding

Precision Cleaning for Delicate Surfaces

One of the most significant advantages of dry ice cleaning for semiconductor applications is its ability to provide aggressive cleaning action while remaining gentle on substrate materials. The density and hardness of dry ice pellets can be precisely controlled, allowing technicians to adjust the cleaning intensity based on the specific requirements of different semiconductor surfaces.

Silicon wafers, photomasks, and other semiconductor components often feature extremely delicate surface structures that can be damaged by traditional abrasive cleaning methods.  Dry ice blasting provides sufficient cleaning power to remove stubborn organic residues, photoresist materials, and other contaminants while preserving the integrity of underlying semiconductor structures.

Eliminating Chemical Residues and Cross-Contamination

Traditional wet cleaning processes in semiconductor manufacturing often require multiple chemical solutions, each designed to target specific types of contamination. While effective, these processes can leave trace chemical residues that require additional cleaning steps or may interfere with subsequent manufacturing processes.

Dry ice blasting eliminates this concern. Since carbon dioxide is an inert gas that's already present in ambient air, there's no risk of introducing foreign chemical species to the semiconductor surface. This is particularly valuable when cleaning critical components, such as photomasks or reticles, where even trace amounts of chemical residues can impact optical properties and pattern fidelity.

Contaminants Removed by Dry Ice Blasting:

Dry ice blasting is highly effective at removing a wide array of contaminants commonly found in semiconductor environments, including:

• Photo-resist
• Polymers
• Ion implant deposits
• Chemical vapor depositions
• Rubberized materials
• Exhaust line residues
• Adhesives and resins
• CVD deposition films
• Wafer polishing compounds
• Oil, paint, grease, and fingerprints

Why Choose Cold Jet for Your Semiconductor Cleaning Needs?

With extensive experience partnering with manufacturers of semiconductor devices and polycrystalline silicon, Cold Jet has developed and integrated over 35 cleaning systems across North America, Asia, and Europe. Our comprehensive solutions range from handheld dry ice blast cleaning machines to fully automated robotic systems, designed to decontaminate a variety of equipment, including:

• Polycrystalline silicon reactors
• Cleaning wafer chambers and process tooling
• Decontaminating plasma-coated fixtures and surfaces
• Maintaining vacuum pumps and implanters
• Molding & die cleaning
• Post-processing chip finishing
• Solder flux & contaminant removal
• Surface preparation & coating removal
• Deposition tooling
• Polishing tooling

By choosing dry ice blasting, semiconductor manufacturers can achieve unprecedented levels of cleanliness, enhance operational efficiency, reduce environmental impact, and ultimately, produce the purest and most valuable products possible.

Conclusion

Dry ice blasting is positioned to play a crucial role in enabling the next generation of semiconductor manufacturing capabilities. For semiconductor manufacturers seeking to enhance their cleaning processes, minimize environmental impact, and improve product quality, dry ice blasting presents a compelling solution that addresses many of the traditional challenges associated with contaminant removal in high-tech manufacturing environments.

Interested in dry ice blasting?

Learn why you should buy a Cold Jet blaster over competitors.