Feeling the Heat to Improve Process Capability?

Sensitive, accurate and repeatable instruments measuring flow rate and the actual delivery temperature of heat

transfer fluids can improve process capability and provide more uniform results from multiple process chambers.

In many semiconductor process stages, heat must be precisely delivered or extracted from the wafer or its surrounds to achieve the desired result. The instrumentation currently available for many applications at the tool or on the heat transfer (HT) fluid system is not adequate to provide precise and repeatable information to ensure uniform performance.

Whether your need is to heat, cool, or maintain your process at a constant temperature, the heat transfer capacity you require is a function of the flow rate, temperature and heat transfer characteristics of your fluid.

• The selection of the best HT fluid for your task is critical when process temperatures are moving above or below the range in which water has been the convenient choice.

• Modern, cost-effective instrumentation can reliably measure flow rates with a repeatability of < 0.5% of actual flow with an accuracy of ~ 2% of actual flow.

• This accuracy is seldom achieved with variable area (VA) flow meters frequently found in liquid supply lines. And if the flow rate to a chamber is estimated by gauging the difference of flows indicated by a remote sensor, large errors may exist – particularly if the liquid source is servicing several chambers!

• Temperature can be estimated with a repeatability of < ±1% of actual temperature over wide ranges.

• While this capability may be present in the display of your remote heat exchanger, this value is NOT the temperature of the fluid when it enters the process chamber.

• Heat is added to or lost from the HT fluid as it moves from its heat source to its heat sink. Even adjacent chambers supplied from the same heat source can have significantly different fluid temperatures at their entry points.

FluidVision™ 4000 Series flow, temperature and pressure meters provide new capabilities to improve batch-to-batch constancy and unify the capability of multiple chambers running the same processes. Accurate and repeatable measurements of fluid flow rate and fluid temperature can be made at the inlet to the process chamber!

Flow and temperature sensors are compatible with all existing HT fluids at pressures up to 1720 kPa.

Thousands of Proteus FluidVision™ instruments are successfully operating on Etch, RTP and other mission-critical tools worldwide.

For detailed technical information, pricing and applications assistance, click here!