For more information or to schedule a meeting with an Expertech representative please email us at inquiry@exper-tech.com or call us at +1-831-439-9300.

Bruce Schmall
Polar Semiconductor

Please visit Expertech at Semicon West, July 10-12, Moscone Center, San Francisco. Drop by booth 2334 in South Hall and register to win an iPad!

Expertech is excited to announce that netMercury has officially joined our sales team. netMercury has offices in Dallas (HQ), Round Rock (Austin), Fremont (CA) and Mesa (AZ) and they will be representing us in TX, AZ, NM, OK, CO, AR, and LA for all Expertech capital products.

Led by President & CEO Terry Hollingshead (formerly of The THT Sales Company), netMercury is a critical parts, materials, equipment, repairs and value-added services supplier with over 30 years of experience supporting global semiconductor manufacturing, vacuum technology and other high-technology industries.

They have extensive expertise in value-added services, custom kitting and maintenance programs as well as automated supply-chain management (ACSM) replenishment services. Although the details of how much of those services they will supply for Expertech is still being hammered out, we’re excited to have one of the premier organizations representing us in key technology areas of the U.S.  Watch for more details to follow or visit their website for additional information.

Expertech was concerned that an important piece of semiconductor history could be lost, so we have become the unofficial curator of the “Thermco museum”. The Pacesetter furnace in the photo is an example of an array of equipment that we’ve assembled in our Scotts Valley facility. It also reminds us of how far the industry has progressed in just a short span of time. We are now looking at furnace solutions for 450mm processing, quite a difference for sure. The museum is open during business hours.

Here is an edited excerpt from the Chiphistory.org website describing this particular furnace:

Here is an excellent view of a state-of-the-art diffusion furnace from the mid 1960s. Note its small diffusion tube, no more than 2 inches at the utmost, barely large enough to hold a boat full of 1½ inch wafers; but no matter, 2 inch wafers were still a few years out in the future. Multiple four and eight tube furnaces were also still a bit away, as was automatic pusher/puller equipment. This unit used a manual quartz pushrod instead, with the operator slowly and uniformly pushing the boatloads into the tube and just as slowly removing them hours later. Also note its three zone controllers, enough to give a good thermal profile of plus or minus a couple of degrees at 1000 degrees C for most of the length of the furnace. Thermco wasn’t the first to manufacture high quality diffusion furnaces, but their high-tech solutions soon won them the major market. Founded in 1962, they were major market leaders before the end of the decade. By 1980 they owned 45% of the diffusion market including their Japanese partner TEL Thermco. Their nearest competitor, Tempress, was almost four times smaller. Just one year later Bruce surged ahead while Thermco dropped a disastrous 28%, all in a stagnant growth market. By 1982 Thermco was sold to Allegheny, then sold again to SVG in 1988 where it was shut down.

Expertech remanufactures Thermco series 4000 and 5000 and maintains an inventory of used systems available for rebuilding to custom requirements.

January 19, 2012, Scotts Valley, CA – Expertech reports recent strong sales of its Compact Thermal Reactor, a complementary product to its line of vertical and horizontal furnaces. Orders have been received for university R&D labs, solar development work, and in semiconductor manufacturing to add production line capacity. Several more orders were booked in December and will be ready for delivery in the first quarter of 2012. The compact system offers processes for atmospheric and LPCVD (low pressure chemical vapor deposition), including hydrogen and high temperature processing, for semiconductor manufacturing and is adaptable for solar, MEMS and other nanotechnologies.

The current success of the CTR (Compact Thermal Reactor) supports these trends in the marketplace:

• Sales to university R&D labs indicate more active partnerships with industry to supply development work;
• Sales to solar manufacturers point to the need of flexible and cost-effective processing for development work.

Semiconductor Foundry

The CTR furnace was originally designed for pilot line production, R&D, and government and university lab environments but has also found a niche in production lines to relieve WIP (work-in-progress) roadblocks. A recent order will be delivered to a domestic semiconductor foundry to add 200mm capacity to the production floor. The value-priced system is much less expensive than buying an additional full-size 200mm furnace and much less expensive to install.

The CTR has a small footprint and an automated loader and gas panel contained within the system. Typically, a full-sized furnace will require an auto loader attached to the outside of the furnace, which adds to the floor space requirements. The CTR model also is stackable, compounding the benefit of its small size, and can be configured to handle a wide variety of process applications. The Windows based host management system allows for data collection and upstream management.

Recently, multiple stacked units have been delivered, including multiple two-high and four-high configurations. The most recent orders were booked in Q4 2011 and will ship in Q1 2012. Expertech will assist in the installation and provide training at the customer sites.

The CTR 125 processes substrates up to 125mm diameter and the CTR 200 extends the process range to 200mm substrates (and processes 125mm and 156mm square substrates, too).

About Expertech

Established in 1992, Expertech’s core competency is newly manufactured thermal processing systems with over 50 systems in the field designed and fully manufactured by Expertech. In addition, Expertech has an established reputation as a supplier of over 500 remanufactured and refurbished systems originally built by other suppliers. They provide field service, repair parts and upgrades for a wide range of thermal systems manufactured by Expertech and other OEM suppliers.
Originally Expertech mainly supported thermal process applications for the semiconductor industry. Since 1995, Expertech has been adapting systems and making custom designed products to meet the needs of the MEMS, photovoltaics, sensors, and optical coatings industries.