New purification medium for fluorocarbon gases

Pall Corporation has introduced a new medium to purify the fluorocarbon process gases used in semiconductor manufacturing facilities.

The FCP medium removes molecular contaminants to sub-part per billion levels, helping to improve manufacturing yields in IC devices with features as small as 65nm. Developed to purify traditional fluorocarbon gases as well as newer, environmentally friendly gases, such as heptafluoropropane and tetrafluoroethane, the medium can be used with Pall's Gaskleen point-of-use purifiers. The inorganic medium has high capacity for removing oxygen, moisture, carbon dioxide and other impurities via an irreversible chemical reaction, while the purifier assemblies are suitable for use as a drop-in replacement for traditional particle filters. "As manufacturers scale device feature sizes to 65nm, these applications become less tolerant of molecular impurities," said Steve Chisolm, president of Pall Microelectronics, a specialist in filtration, separations and purification technologies for the microelectronics sector.