Posted to News on 24th Sep 2020, 10:30
High speed solenoid valves increase semiconductor production output
Semiconductor manufacturers are making increasing demands on component suppliers to help them meet new production standards and higher speeds
As semiconductor node sizes drop below 10 nanometers and wafer test cells demand greater efficiency and throughput, the need for semiconductor equipment manufacturers to accurately and speedily dispense and meter small volumes of critical fluids is increasingly intense. Operating conditions for these high-performance systems demand field-proven fluidic components which must now be capable of 'near-digital' response: and as chip volumes increase, so high-reliability solutions are required to maximise production line uptime.
To help meet these new demands, Lee Products, which established itself in the fluid control business in 1948, introduced its VHS Series solenoid valves: they are specifically designed to accurately dispense critical fluids through jewelled orifices. With the arrival of this new series, precise droplets of water or coolant can be dispensed onto chips during packaging and classification, and equally precise volumes of helium can be metered for thermal process control and wafer probing instruments. Lee says that unlike typical solenoid valves, the VHS Series features a response time as low as 250 μs, allowing near instant dispensing of spherical droplets thagt are as small as 10 nanoliters, all contained in a compact package which is under 6mm in diameter.
Lee states that the ultra-fast VHS Series dispense valves offer a long life of 250 million cycles whilst improving production line throughput and reducing downtime. Integration of this valve into new as well as legacy automated systems is claimed to be simple, thanks to convenient, leak-tight fluidic connections. The VHS Series is constructed from materials known for compatibility with a wide range of liquids and gases used in the semiconductor industry.
According to Lee Products, its VHS Series valves are field proven in semiconductor classification cooling systems, wafer probe devices, surface energy measurement devices, and many other specialised cutting-edge applications. The valves are said to be well suited for applications requiring perfect droplets, the metering of nanoliters of a critical fluid, or for injection into a flow stream. The small size of the VHS Series allows the valve to be located exactly where it is needed, and in-line fittings allow installation within existing runs of tubing to provide added system functionality.
