The industry traditionally uses chemical-based mixtures for SI cleaning and semiconductor cleaning applications. But, they’re moving towards an ozone functional water treatment that is friendlier to the environment, reduces waste and costs less.

Manufacturers want a safe, energy-efficient organic removal and surface treatment using cleaning liquid at room temperature. They also want to reduce traditional chemical consumption that isn’t environmentally friendly and costs more for waste treatment. An example is the SPM process that uses a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and hot sulfuric acid — a corrosive and harmful chemical that increases waste treatment costs.

They also need cleaner ozonated water at a higher ozone dissolution concentration beyond the current benchmark to help increase yield. Clean ozonized water ensures organic wafer contamination is removed on silicon (Si) wafers and flat panel displays (FPD).

Since the 1980s, GORE Ozonation Modules have been successfully used in an ozone water-based wafer cleaning tool for silicon wafer and semiconductor applications. This ozonation module provides a safer and more effective treatment using deionized ozone water (DI-O₃ water) than commonly used methods involving harsh chemicals and many semiconductor cleaning process steps.

For instance, wet cleaning and photoresist removal methods use chemicals in the preparation of silicon wafer cleaning, followed by an SPM wet cleaning process that also uses chemicals to remove the remaining organic contaminants.

Proven, Continuous, Consistent Concentration & Flow

Gore’s modules generate the cleanest, bubble-free, ozonized ultra-pure water on the market today — cleaner than ozone water generated by mechanical mixer technology, like an ejector or static mixer.

These modules can also achieve the highest dissolved ozone concentrations up to 200 mg/L. They continuously and consistently dissolve ozone gas into ultra-high pure water to generate the cleanest, bubble-free ozone water. We manufacture our ozone modules with microporous fluoropolymer membranes that allow high water entry pressure (WEP) of more than 0.40 MPa.

With this level of proven continuous, consistent concentration and flow, GORE Ozonation Modules are the ideal solution in ozone water systems for clean SI wafer and FPD applications.

Compare GORE Ozonation Modules against mechanical mixers to better understand the advantages of our product.

GORE Ozonation Modules are a cost-effective solution for use in leading-edge SEMI process ozone water applications and cleaning processes with ozone in the microelectronics industry, like:

• Silicon wafer cleaning and production
• Logic and memory fabrication
• LED/OLED/QOLED (LTPS) flat panel display cleaning & production
• Photomask

GORE Ozonation Modules provide numerous features and benefits for semiconductor cleaning equipment manufacturers that improve ozone water cleaning processes such as:

• Bubble-free, ultra-high purity ozone water at highest concentration up to 200 mg/L
• Cleanest ozone water due to unique fluoropolymer construction
• No particle contamination due to ePTFE membrane tube
• High WEP > 0.40 MPa due to microporous membrane technology
• Proven continuous and consistent operation
• Easy-to-control ozone water flow rate and concentration

These values demonstrate the characteristics of GORE Ozonation Modules for semiconductor and microelectronics processing.