Abrasion resistance is key in clean room design

When Ortner designed its intelligent clean room shelf system for the semiconductor industry, it chose Victrex Peek for the shelf trays as it had the highest abrasion resistance available.

When Ortner of Dresden, Germany wanted to develop an intelligent clean room shelf system for the semiconductor industry, it chose Victrex Peek, a high-performance polymer for the shelf trays because it had the highest abrasion resistance of all the materials tested.

"Each successive generation of new IC devices demands lower particle contamination to prevent wafer loss", explains Victrex's Sam Brahmbhatt, Global Applications Manager - Semiconductor and Display.

"Foreign particles introduced during wafer handling and processing are a key culprit".

Wear particles are produced by a variety of contact mechanisms.

"For instance", explains Brahmbhatt, "in wafer carriers and storage boxes, the major modes of particle generation are caused by rubbing on sharp objects, sliding on stainless steel surfaces, direct wafer contact, and carrier storage box interaction".

Victrex Peek meets the strictest requirements for extractables in clean room, wet processing, pharmaceutical processing and analytical chemistry applications to prevent inadvertent wafer doping and particulate sloughing.

The polymer contains no additives, fillers, or stabilisers that could leach into the fluid stream or outgas in vacuum or high heat environments.

"In addition", says Brahmbhatt, "Victrex Peek offers superior mechanical, chemical, thermal and tribological properties that result in a reliable shelf system with a long service life and reduced maintenance and down time costs".

Cost effective and user friendly, the Ortner shelf system, called AWIC3, is based on RFID (radio frequency identification) technology.

It provides an easy handling solution to track every wafer lot in the semiconductor production line.

Every storage position is automatically linked with the matching lot information.

When the operator puts down the lot randomly on any shelf position, the RF reading process is directly initialised by a special switch mechanism.

The data collection is saved in a central database that allows access from every PC-terminal in the intranet over an OS-independent illustrated web interface.

Lighting an LED lamp at the right storage position shows the operator where the lot actually is located.

Ortner is a producer of clean room transport and logistic systems for the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries.

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