Primary responsibilities:
1. Eliminate production excursions caused by end-of-life uncertainty with a proprietary photoresist stripper bath.
2. Extend overall chemical bath life.
The challenge
Production excursions are very expensive. That’s why reducing chemical bath variation, which helps prevent costly scrapping events, is a primary goal of mine.
Extending chemical bath life is another priority. Because we spend $260,000 US annually on proprietary chemicals, prolonging bath life has the potential to deliver significant savings.
The solution
My search led to a partnership with ABB.
During the ensuing two-year project, the partnership among the ABB distribution partner, the ABB Analytical division, and me resulted in the successful installation of a wet process analyzer (WPA) with the ClippIR sampling device.
Due to the success of this initial project, we expanded it to include over fifteen baths.
Why I chose ABB:
I selected ABB because of the following WPA features:
- Externally mounted ClippIR means no chance of contamination.
A huge issue for me—not only is it now impossible to create a contamination issue, but the analyzed sample does not increase the volume of waste or require any modification to our tool plumbing.
- Real-time process monitoring with no drift.
In the past, I’ve seen both missed and faulty bath alarms caused by analyzer drift. We avoid this with the ABB system.
- Minimal preventative maintenance–change lamps once or twice per year.
I’ve used analyzers that had to be returned to the factory for preventive maintenance; others required paying a separate vendor for on-site PM. This was costly and time consuming.
- Up to eight fiber-optic ClippIR units per analyzer that can be mounted anywhere.
It was much more cost effective to buy three WPAs that could monitor multiple baths, rather than buy over 15 analyzers from a different supplier.
- Local technical support and easy installation.
Because of the ClippIR design and simplicity of the analyzer, we could use a locally certified ABB partner for installation and maintenance.
And with ABB’s support, we plan on deploying this procedure globally to all our FABs as ABB has local service and support in every country where our FABs are located.
- Advanced calibration options.
During the implementation, ABB worked with our chemical suppliers to build the calibrations for their proprietary chemicals. The two-way communication between the WPA and the tool workstation enabled effective closed-loop control.
The results
Eliminating production excursions caused by unregulated photoresist baths—that was my main goal when installing ABB’s
WPA.
I not only met this goal, I exceeded it: the
WPA enabled us to eliminate scrap and extend overall bath life by 23%.
We estimate combined savings from a reduction of chemicals purchased (thanks to extended bath life), lower disposal costs of used chemicals and reduced excursion risk has resulted in a savings of over $600,000 US per year.
Overall, once ABB’s solution is fully implemented through out the FAB, projected savings are estimated to approach $3 million US annually.
As well, we decreased our use of environmentally unfriendly chemicals requiring special waste disposal. The potential impact on the environment is crucial, as our company’s green initiative is a top priority.
These results justified the further expansion of the project to more than 15 other photoresist baths. The collaboration among all players involved in the project was a challenge, but with the cooperation and expertise of ABB and the other companies we succeeded
For further information regarding ABB products and services visit
www.abb.com/analytical
* Each ABB Hero Story is a real business case. In order to maintain confidentiality, the name of the "hero" has been changed and the company name is not mentioned.
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