Ultrapure water equipment "guards" semiconductors to fight the epidemic
For the world, fighting the new crown pneumonia epidemic is a major event in 2021, and the semiconductor industry is no exception. SIA stated that during the epidemic, the semiconductor industry played a role in five areas and made its own contribution to the fight against the epidemic.
1. Chips enter more medical equipment, ranging from 100,000 US dollars to thousands of US dollars
Semiconductor is an important part of many medical equipment. It can provide functions such as operation control, data processing and storage, wireless connection and power management. Since semiconductors can provide the functions of previous non-semiconductor devices, the performance of medical equipment has been improved, and the cost has been reduced, which helps to cope with the epidemic and improve the overall medical environment.
2. Sensors and analog chips realize the temperature measurement of dense crowds
For many reopened workplaces and public facilities, it is very important to check the body temperature of a large number of people. There are two commonly used thermal imaging cameras or non-contact forehead infrared thermometers. These devices also rely on semiconductors such as sensors and analog chips to convert temperature and other data into digital readings.
3. Artificial intelligence and supercomputing accelerate vaccine research and development
The influenza pandemic quickly produced a large amount of data that can be used to open the new coronavirus-19 vaccine, but its huge amount of data makes it difficult for researchers to quickly find the data. Semiconductor technology is simplifying the data collection process for vaccine researchers.
4. Remote office and online infrastructure
During the popular period, semiconductors were the infrastructure for company telecommuting and online classroom communication in schools. With the development of the epidemic, the trend of telecommuting and education continues. The network utilization rate of the enterprise has increased by 30%-50%. Even logistics and distribution rely heavily on chip-based communication services.
5. New sensors help vulnerable groups fight the epidemic
Semiconductor technology has also strengthened the protection of vulnerable groups such as the elderly, diabetes and hearing impaired. After the outbreak, the real-time monitoring system can help doctors provide remote medical assistance and guidance to these people. Due to the emergence of new semiconductor sensors, wearable devices can provide monitoring services for blood sugar and other health indicators.
The semiconductor industry needs a lot of clean water in the production process. With the continuous development of the semiconductor industry, the requirements for the conductivity, ion content, TOC, DO and particulate matter of clean water are becoming more and more stringent. Because ultrapure water has high requirements for semiconductors in many indicators, ultrapure water in the semiconductor industry has different water requirements from other industries. The semiconductor industry has extremely strict water quality requirements for ultrapure water. At present, the commonly used ultrapure water standards in China include the national standard "Electronic Grade Water" (GB/T 11446.1-2013) and the American standard "Guide to Ultrapure Water for Electronics and Semiconductor Industries" (ASTM-D5127-13). The US standards have stricter requirements on indicators.
In the semiconductor manufacturing process, boron is a P-type impurity. Excessive amount will reverse the N-type silicon, thereby affecting the concentration of electrons and holes. Therefore, the removal of boron should be fully considered in the ultrapure water industry. The standard guide for ultrapure water used in the electronics and semiconductor industries (ASTM-D5127-13) requires boron ion ≤0.05μg/L. If the boron ion content can reach a lower target, it will inevitably improve the performance of the semiconductor.
The Huncotte system uses nuclear grade resin in the semiconductor ultrapure water process, which can effectively control the boron ion content of the effluent of the system through a unique targeted ion exchange resin. Use IPC-MS to detect boron ion content, and analyze the boron ion effluent ≤0.005μG/L, which is far lower than the requirement of boron ion≤0.05μg/L in E1.3 in ASTM-D5127-13 standard. We believe that higher-quality ultra-pure water can bring better performance to semiconductors, and bring stronger advantages to semiconductor companies. Ultra-pure water equipment "guards" semiconductors against epidemics.