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This blog explores how manufacturers use fluoroproducts to enhance the performance, durability and reliability of semiconductors and electronics components.

As our devices become smarter, our reliance on them grows. Every electronic device we encounter contains one or more chips made from semiconductors. Smart phones, tablets, laptops, game consoles, household appliances, automotive components, just to name a few.

Despite the power of our devices, the electronics that operate them are vulnerable to temperature changes, dust, moisture, and chemicals. This vulnerability is why manufacturers rely on fluoroproducts.

Here’s a quick look at how these advanced fluoroproducts ensure optimal performance.

Fluoropolymer Coatings on Circuit Boards

As cellular network technology advances, printed circuit boards face higher performance and quality demands. AGC’s Fluon+™ EA-2000 functionalized perfluoro resin coats and protects PCBs by providing heat and chemical resistance, improved insulation and electrical characteristics and reduced transmission loss in antennas and sensors. It also enables strong adhesion and lamination to other materials such as smooth copper foils.

Transparent Amorphous Fluoropolymer Coatings

Transparent amorphous fluoropolymer coatings serve as protective layers for sensitive electronics and optical components while allowing light transmission. These coatings excel in harsh environmental conditions, making them ideal for electronic parts like circuit boards. AGC’s CYTOP™ transparent amorphous fluoropolymers don’t require a baking process for adhesion and imparts a protective coating against acid or alkaline etching as well as insulation properties to semiconductor and MEMS-related materials.

Transparent amorphous fluoropolymers can be easily applied due to their high solubility in a specialized fluorocarbon solvent. This feature allows manufacturers to adjust the coating thickness by varying the solvent amount, enabling ultra-thin film coatings down to sub-micron levels.

Perfluoroelastomers

Ultra-clean FFKM fluoroelastomers meet the unique demands of semiconductor applications, offering high temperature durability, chemical resistance and exceptional resistance to O2 and NF3 plasma. Plasma, an excellent conductor of heat and electricity, is crucial throughout various stages of semiconductor production including deposition, etching, cleaning and doping.

FFKM fluoroelastomers are particularly suited for creating semiconductor chamber seals, cushioning for wafer transport, butterfly exhaust valves and centering O-rings in flanges. AGC’s AFLAS® FFKM PM-5000 and PM-5500 nitrile curable grades boast a high thermal resistance of 300 °C or more, ideal for the extreme conditions of semiconductor plasma processes. Additionally, their high molecular weight allows for greater hardness without relying on fillers.

AGC’s AFLAS® FFKM PM-3500 fluoroelastomer grades also achieve a Shore A hardness of 70 without fillers, minimizing contamination risks in clean rooms where high purity is essential. Their plasma and heat resistance make them perfect for use in semiconductor etching processes and for manufacturing seals in chambers, windows, doors, and valves, as well as cushioning for water transport in semiconductor production.

Fluorinated Precision Cleaning Solvents

Fluorinated precision cleaning solvents play a crucial role in electronics manufacturing by enhancing the performance, reliability and longevity of components. These solvents effectively remove accumulated contaminants and residues from soldering fluxes that other solvents cannot dissolve.

Offering a safer toxicity profile and being more environmentally friendly than traditional solvents, AMOLEA AS-300 and AS-300AT series cleaning agents are used extensively to clean electronic components such as reflector glasses in laser printers, lenses, and audio and video heads. They are also used for defluxing printed circuit boards and wire assemblies.

These fluoroproducts boast several safety and environmental benefits: they have no flash point, do not deplete the ozone layer, and exhibit low global warming potential and low surface tension. Additionally, they are nonflammable, chemically and thermally stable and do not require the use of explosion-proof equipment.

Fluorinated Resins 

Fluoropolymer resins are necessary to protect components, substrates and sensitive electronics parts. AGC’s Fluon® ETFE, PFA and PTFE resins have a variety of uses in semiconductor wet and fabrication processes.  PTFE and PFA are ideal as sealants and tubing to enhance flow measurement, facilitate thermal management and support heat transfer fluids because of their unique temperature and chemical resistance properties.  ETFE and PFA have very low metals and impurity content and meet the requirements of SEMI F57 thereby making them choice products for filtration, wafer transport and water system tubing.  ETFE powders meet FM 4922 and have a UL 94 flame rating of V-0 and are ideal for duct coatings in metal exhaust systems with corrosion and fire-resistant requirements as well as tank linings.

ETFE Film

AGC’s Fluon® ETFE Films maintain exceptional releasability and provide moderate cushioning, even at high temperatures exceeding 200 °C, making them ideal release films for electronics and semiconductor encapsulation. These films contain minimal additives or plasticizers, ensuring they won’t contaminate products or devices. Fluon ETFE Film is widely used as a cushioning/release film in semiconductor molding processes.

Learn more about our fluoroproducts and industry solutions at https://www.agcchem.com/.

 

AGC Chemicals