SEMI Announces Five New Technical Standards

SEMI (Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International), the global industry association serving the manufacturing supply chains for the microelectronic, display and photovoltaic industries, has published five new technical standards applicable to the semiconductor, MEMS and photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing industry. The new standards were developed by technical experts from equipment and materials suppliers, device manufacturers and other companies participating in the SEMI International Standards Program.

SEMI Standards are published three times a year. The new standards, part of the March 2009 publication cycle, join more than 780 standards that have been published by SEMI during the past 35 years.

The new standards include a test method for evaluating photovoltaic silicon feedstock. While SEMI has been developing and publishing PV standards since 1981, they were previously included in the materials volume.

“Given the level of current standards development activity in the PV area, SEMI created a new volume focused on photovoltaics,” says James Amano, Director, SEMI International Standards. “The new PV standard, along with the four others, will contribute to improved yield and ensure compatibility of equipment and processes worldwide.”

The new SEMI Standards being released includes:
SEMI E151
Guide for Understanding Data Quality
SEMI E151 establishes a set of common terminology and definitions that help specify, communicate, address, and discuss the quality of data produced by semiconductor production equipment.

As the industry moves toward automated and data-driven manufacturing, the data generated by equipment is critical to improving equipment and factory productivity. The quality of reported data is of paramount importance to ensure successful use of software applications that use and/or analyze this data and for automating decision making. Incomplete or inaccurate data will lead to poor decisions which reduce factory productivity and affect the performance of Equipment Engineering Systems.

This new standard impacts both SECS and EDA interfaces to factory systems and is closely tied to the verification of the interface protocols. Subsequent standard work will include measurements for the described data quality attributes.

SEMI F107
Guide for Process Equipment Adaptor Plates
Installation of process equipment is an important part of both new and old technologies. As described in SEMI F107, the adapter plate can be utilized for any process equipment that is typically complex, reducing installation time and cost. It enables most of the pre-facilitization to be completed prior to the main process equipment arrival, allowing the equipment to be qualified and brought up to production faster.

For the semiconductor manufacturer, use of the adaptor plate enables most construction to be completed prior to tool dock and potentially reduces tool installation cost by reducing the number of facility POCs. It also provides accurate facility information from the tool supplier.

For the process tool manufacturer, it reduces the time from tool delivery to first wafer, process qualification and final payment by providing a uniform and predictable interface between the tool and the fab. By having facilities complete prior to tool dock allows support personnel to immediately focus on hardware and process tuning

SEMI M75
Specifications for Polished Monocrystalline Gallium Antimonide Wafers
The SEMI M75 document defines standard descriptions for the parameters to be specified in the procurement and supply of round wafers of gallium antimonide (GaSb) monocrystalline material.

These specifications cover the information required for the procurement of round, flatted GaSb wafers and the standard dimensional and orientation conventions for the supply of such wafers.

SEMI MS8
Guide to Evaluating Hermeticity of MEMS Packages
The SEMI MS8 guide addresses the problems of manufacturing and testing of dramatically reduced hermetic package volumes for MEMS. It also addresses the expanded range of hermeticity requirements from quasi-hermetic to ultra-hermetic, rapidly emerging materials such as liquid crystal polymer, and new manufacturing techniques such as wafer-level and chip-scale packaging.

While there are a wide range of MEMS devices, a common need is for packaging that allows movement of the internal device during operation. This is in contrast to the typical integrated circuit that requires only that the device be protected from the environment and that appropriate interconnections be made. In many cases, hermeticity is critical to MEMS device functionality.

MEMS packaging is particularly challenging due to low enclosed cavity volumes and increased sensitivity of enclosed devices to chemical and particulate contamination.

This guide begins to move towards common expectations among manufacturers and users on how to perform initial product acceptance and how to project performance over operating life. Development of such common expectations will be a critical enabler for proliferation of MEMS technology.

SEMI PV1
Test Method for Measuring Trace Elements in Photovoltaic-Grade Silicon by High-Mass Resolution Glow Discharge Mass Spectrometry

SEMI PV1 standardizes the Glow Discharge Mass Spectrometry (GDMS) test method used to measure impurities in silicon feedstock that can affect the performance of silicon solar cells.

Test methods for silicon feedstock are used for buying and selling of silicon feedstock, and for research and development of processes used to manufacture silicon solar cells which account for about 90 percent of solar cells used today. It is worth noting that the total annual volume of silicon feedstock that goes into silicon solar cells has now surpassed the total annual volume of polysilicon used in the silicon semiconductor industry.

SEMI S12
Environmental, Health and Safety Guideline for Manufacturing Equipment Decontamination
The updated SEMI S12 guideline for decontamination of manufacturing equipment adds to the previous SEMI S12-0298 and provides missing details so that all tool decontamination can adhere to standard practices. SEMI S12 provides baseline information for decontamination planning, safety approaches and equipment to use, and decontamination methods for specific manufacturing equipment. It provides a list of decontamination criteria to address hazards of concern for semiconductor equipment as well as suggested documents that may be useful to track the decontamination activities.

Tools that are not decontaminated properly when shipped provide a likely opportunity for some type of mishap, such as spill or fire, which requires a costly cleanup and can lead to possible legal implications.

In many cases when tools are sold or returned from lease, additional costs are incurred due to tool decontamination either not being performed or being performed improperly. With the increase in used tool movement/shipment the need to ship these tools safely continues to be paramount. The updated SEMI S12 guideline provides a concise source of information that can be used by fab operators, tool brokers and OEMs so that the movement of tools can be performed safely and in a cost effective manner.

In addition to the five new standards, a complete rewrite of SEMI S12 was released. This document is an Environmental, Health and Safety Guideline for Manufacturing Equipment Decontamination.

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