Evolution of Gas Delivery and Liquid Delivery Systems in Semiconductor Processing Equipment: Modular Architectures Drive Configurability Options and Improve Tool Productivity : EO: Equipment Optimization

Modular gas delivery systems replaced conventional gas panels in the semiconductor capital equipment industry for “dry” manufacturing processes such as plasma etch, chemical vapor deposition, physical vapor deposition, epitaxy, and dry strip. Modular gas delivery systems were adopted as a result of numerous benefits the modular architecture offers over conventional system designs. These benefits include smaller size/smaller footprint, easily customizable configurability, ease of maintenance, and increased equipment productivity. From our position as a gas panel supplier to major dry processing equipment manufacturers we have observed and responded to the customer-driven conversion to modular gas delivery systems. We think the same advantages of modularity apply in liquid chemical delivery applications, for example wet cleaning and surface removal, and we are in the process of converting conventional chemical delivery systems into modular-based ones. We present here details about the industry’s conversion from conventional to modular gas delivery systems, extracting the lessons learned, and applying those best practices to modular architecture chemical delivery systems used in the major wet tool applications, including wet cleaning, Electrochemical Deposition (ECD), and Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP). We will also discuss three areas of focuses of development on the modular system architecture: serviceability, sealing mechanisms, and contamination control.