Electronics Protection - Fall 2016 - 25

Thermal construction, with 304 or 316 Stainless steel available. All Evolution series air conditioners use a flush mounted 10 micron electrostatic filter, that's easy to remove, cleanable, and reusable. Extreme ambient operating temperature ranges are -40°F to 140°F or -40°C to 60°C. For maximum flexibility the Evolution series features an internal configurable control panel where you will find the AC power input, and depending on the options chosen, this panel could also include a digital controller, an ethernet port and an alarm output. Laird's Liquid Cooling Systems and Temperature Controllers Designed for Semiconductor Fabrication Equipment Laird has developed custom cooling and temperature control systems for semiconductor fabrication equipment. The critical production tools used in semiconductor fabrication facilities must be reliable and easy to service to minimize downtime. Laird's custom liquid cooling systems for semiconductor tools, which can include heat exchangers, pumps, sensors, thermoelectric modules, thermoelectric assemblies, thermoelectric chillers, compressors, flow controllers, temperature controllers, and more, are specifically designed to keep these tools running at precise temperatures. Thousands of cooling and temperature control systems are installed and operate continuously in fabrication facilities. The cooling capacity demands vary from a couple of hundred Watts (thermoelectric chiller and compressor based systems) to hundreds of Kilowatts (liquid-to-liquid cooling systems) with required temperature control ranges from -80°C to 150°C. The majority of applications require one stable temperature set point. However, in the final chip test environment, temperatures are required to vary in order to stress the chip. Here different temperature set points need to be obtained by a single thermal management system. Due to the high-precision processes, tool manufacturers demand a very stable temperature environment. Typical of these requirements are +/-0.1K stability (e.g. for etching) to ±0.001K (e.g. for lithography), while cooling capacities can be up to several kilowatts. In semiconductor fabrication facilities, Laird's custom multistage compressor based chillers are used to support cooling for very low temperature requirements. Most standard chillers need some form of modification to meet semiconductor process facility requirements and may even require a water-cooled condenser. Laird's liquid-to-liquid cooling systems operate close to ambient and are based on a fluid-to-fluid heat-exchange principle. Laird also offers cost-efficient thermoelectric-based (19″ rack) cooling systems for etch applications. Laird's custom cooling systems have a water-cooled evaporator instead of an air-cooled evaporator. A liquid-toliquid solution is quieter than a liquid-to-air system because a fan is not required. More importantly, the heat can be rejected by available general facility cooling water and may not be rejected into the air temperature conditioned environment. Laird cooling systems can be positioned near the production tool, hidden in a false floor or on the lower level in a sub-floor and are built to meet SEMI S2 or F47 standard, including seismic protection. Laird's cooling and temperature control systems can be configured to meet cleanroom requirements. A semiconductor fabrication environment is one of the most challenging applications for designing and building liquid based cooling systems. Careful consideration is required not only for component selection, but also for the overall liquid cooling system unit and its integration with the semiconductor tools. System challenges that designers face include the type of heat transfer mechanism utilized on the control and heat dissipation sides, material compatibility, valve control, cleanliness, space optimization, semi compliance and serviceability. These are all areas that need of attention to properly ensure optimized total cost of ownership. www.ElectronicsProtectionMagazine.com * Fall 2016 25 http://www.ElectronicsProtectionMagazine.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Electronics Protection - Fall 2016