Materials

Changes in PVDF To Improve High-Purity Water Piping Systems

By Rosemary Heinze

MATERIALS OF CONSTRUCTION PHARMACEUTICALS PVDF SEMICONDUCTORS

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Abstract

In the initial years of the development of semiconductor technologies, the manufacturers found that the quality of the water in the wafer rinse process was critical to the performance of the computer chips. In the 1980s, it was generally considered that chip yields of 75% were considered common for a start-up manufacturing plant (1). These low yields were found to be partly associated with materials of construction in the process fluid handling system used for cleaning the silicon wafers. The original systems were made from steel pipes and the high ionic extractables related to metals proved to give less than perfect performance for the produced chips. A move to plastic piping ensued, and for a short period of time this was found to reduce metal contamination, but then led to new forms of contamination such as total organic carbon (TOC) and residual extractables related to the processing aids, stabilizers, and other additives common to commodity plastic piping. An additional concern about commodity plastic piping was that these materials were not optimal for higher temperatures, which obviously allowed for improved cleaning performance.

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