Wastewater Treatment Technology

Staff -- Semiconductor International, 12/1/1998

Microbar Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) has introduced a proprietary polymer process that enables selective filtration of both dissolved and suspended contaminants for fabs using CMP fluorinated chemistries or copper interconnects. The EnChem process was acquired by Microbar from Environmental Chemistries Inc. and modified to meet semiconductor manufacturing safe water reclamation needs that require less water consumption. The SIA National Technology Roadmap shows IC manufacturers must reduce water consumption from 30 gallons per square inch of silicon processed in 1997 to less than 10 gallons per square inch processed in 1999. The National Technology Roadmap mandates the cutting of ultrapure water use in semiconductor production from 22 gallons per square inch in 1997 to 10 gallons in 1999 and a continued reduction to seven gallons by 2003.

The Microbar process is capable of reducing water usage during the semiconductor manufacturing process by up to 85% through reclaim and exceeds the industry standard for wastewater process treatments by removing over 99.7% of contaminating materials at a lower cost. Copper electroplating effluent, CMP slurry, residual fluoride and silica particulates can be treated by the system, which is engineered to treat CMP wastewater streams to remove H.F., silica, copper, tungsten, alumina and silicon materials and can treat the combined waste streams of electroplating solutions, wafer rinse water and CMP slurry in a single process.