Calibrate for Trace Moisture in Electronic Specialty Gases
Challenge: Semiconductor chips are used in a variety of electronics such as smartphones, military equipment, vehicles, and healthcare equipment. The production of semiconductor chips requires the use of high purity Electronic Specialty Gases (ESG) that should be free of trace contaminants such as moisture. The ubiquitous nature of trace moisture makes it challenging to calibrate and test for contaminant levels in ESG. To mitigate risk of damage to semiconductor chips, the manufacturing process must analyze ESG for ppm to pptr of moisture concentration. The KIN-TEK Analytical customized Span PacTM 61-H2O WeldedX (SP61-H2O-WX) moisture permeation system calibrates for trace moisture content in various ESG.
As semiconductor chips are extremely sensitive, any ESG used in the production process is required to be as pure as possible (typically higher than 99.998% purity) or risk damaging the chips. ESGs are used for etching and deposition processes to create the layers and tracks on the semiconductor chips. A few examples of an ESG are Hydrogen (for Purging), Ammonia (for Deposition), and Chlorine (for Etching). Depending on the application, analysis of impurities such as moisture may be from ppmv down to pptr concentrations. Calibration must be done with a moisture standard that is isolated from atmospheric moisture but adds a known measured amount of water vapor to the test gas.
How to Calibrate for trace moisture content…
Solution: KIN-TEK Analytical, Inc. offers a customized orbitally welded moisture generator (SP61-H2O-WX) that switches between carrier gases easily. Using the standard addition technique, trace moisture calibrations are done by spiking the carrier gas with an accurate moisture concentration to yield a known standard beyond baseline values.
- Integrated third party software available on a user supplied PC provides an extra feature of real time graphical interface and data logging of mass flow over time.
- Changing carrier gases is done by choosing the predetermined ESG from a drop-down menu and physically connecting that gas at 60 psig.
- NIST Traceable standards for mulitpoint calibration and validation is done easily with the SP61-H2O-WX or SP61-H2O-WSDX (with secondary dilution capability).
