At the intersection of precision and manufacturing, vibration control floor platforms for semiconductor tools play a pivotal role in ensuring high-quality, accurate results. TMC, a leader in the field of vibration control, delved into this matter, shedding light on their unique quiet island configurations at a recent presentation by MikeGeorgalis, North American sales manager. Semiconductor…
At the intersection of precision and manufacturing, vibration control floor platforms for semiconductor tools play a pivotal role in ensuring high-quality, accurate results. TMC, a leader in the field of vibration control, delved into this matter, shedding light on their unique quiet island configurations at a recent presentation by MikeGeorgalis, North American sales manager.
Semiconductor manufacturing facilities employ a diverse array of tools – from lithography and inspection tools to metrology and failure analysis tools – each with its unique sensitivities to vibration. Ellis highlighted the issues that these sensitivities pose, such as imperfections in images and artifacts in scanning electron microscopy caused by vibration. However, these problems can be mitigated using TMC’s quiet island floor platforms, which are designed to isolate and therefore minimize the impact of vibration on these critical tools.
Deciding which platform is suitable involves understanding whether the tool in question has a specification or limit for vibration. Tools with no such specs may not be vibration-sensitive and can use a rigid platform with minimal isolation. But for tools that do have vibration specs, more comprehensive measures should be taken.
Such measures involve doing a vibration survey to measure floor acceleration when excited by vibration. This provides valuable data to make an informed decision: if the floor vibration is greater than the tool’s specification, an active cancellation platform like Stasis Quiet Island from TMC is recommended. However, if the vibration is lower than the tool’s spec, a rigid platform could be installed and later upgraded if needed.
TMC understands the dynamic nature of fabs – vibration levels tend to increase over time, and tool owners usually aim to increase their tool’s resolution over time. Therefore, preemptive measures can save time and money in the long run.
Whether a rigid or active quiet island is selected, TMC’s team of application engineers work closely with clients to customize and fine-tune the configuration of the quiet island, making them a reliable partner for managing vibration challenges in semiconductor manufacturing facilities. Check them out today for some of the best vibration control floor platforms on the market today!
Video TranscriptExpand ↓
Hi. I'm Mike George Ellis. I'm the North American sales manager for TMC vibration control. Today, I wanna talk to you about floor platforms for semiconductor manufacturing tools. Specifically, we'll talk about our TMC quiet island configuration, which is available in both active cancellation systems and rigid quiet islands would provide no isolation. There are a wide range vibration sensitive tools and semiconductor manufacturing facility ranging from lithography tools or for inspection tools, etrology tools, and failure analysis tools. One of the common artifacts we see in applications such as scan electron microscopy might be waves and imperfections in the image and artifacts due to vibration. If you remove that vibration from the environment by placing that tool on a quiet island floor platform, you can get one of rid of those waves and see the features that you really want to resolve. The first thing that you're gonna consider when you're bringing in a vibration sensitive goal is, does this tool have a specification or a limit for vibration? If the answer is no, that might be an indication that the tool is not very sensitive to vibration at all. In which case, the level of isolation needs to be very low and you can use a rigid platform which contains no isolation. If you don't know whether or not your tool has a vibration spec, then it's always a good idea to ask the vendor. And double check. Again, if the answer is no, a rigid non isolated platform might be a good choice. If the answer is yes, then you need to figure out what the spec's gonna be and you do that in one of two ways. You can consider a similar epic application. Look at the vibration levels there, and look at the specification for the tool there, and which may enable you to have some sort of criterion to use a guideline. Alternatively, many vendors publish specs, which can take the form as a defined magnitude that was measured and qualified by the vendor, or it might be in the form of the v c curves, the vibration criterion, which are an industry standard of vibration levels which are acceptable for different applications. Once you discovered whether or not you have a spec and if you do have a spec, the next thing that you should do is check to see if you have a survey. A vibration survey is a process by which an engineer comes to the facility and uses accelerometers and a data analyzer to measure the acceleration of the floor when it was as as as it is excited by vibration. So if you have not had a survey done, you have two choices. First, Get one done. The second, you need to assume that the floor vibration that's in your facility is greater than the specification of the tool. And the conservative assumption would lead you to choose an active cancellation platform instead of a rigid cancellation, a rigid isolation platform. If you have had a survey done, then you can compare the specification of the tool to the vibration in the floor. In the case where vibration is lower than the specification, there's a choice that needs to be made and you could do a simple risk analysis. It's a known fact that floor vibration and fabs rises over time. It's also been shown that tool owners would want to increase the resolution achievable by their tool over time and push the tool to its performance limits. In these two cases, vibration is likely to become more and more of a problem over time. So you can choose to install a rigid platform where it indicates where the vibration is less than the spec and upgrade it later to an active plant cancellation platform, if needed, or You can install an active cancellation platform immediately and not have to deal with tool tear down and downtime later on. If your survey shows that the vibration in the floor is greater than the tool specification, then the best route to go is with Stasis quiet Island. In any of these cases, a bridge quiet Island, a Stasis active quiet Island, or a rigid quiet island. In the case of no spec, your next step is going to be to get the pedestal fully specified by TMC. Once you've decided on whether or not you would like to use an active or a rigid quiet island, work with one of our TMC application engineers to determine the configuration of your quiet island. These can be customized for tools of all shapes and sizes and the needs of your application kit will be analyzed and met by one of our engineers.
