Jul 12 2011
ATMI, Inc. (NASDAQ-GS: ATMI) today formally announced that one of its new semiconductor manufacturing products has been acknowledged by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as receiving its 'Design for the Environment' designated label (DfE Label).
The product, iCleaner, designed for a semiconductor fabrication cleaning process, is the first chemistry in the Semiconductor industry to receive this accolade. According to the EPA's DfE Website, the designation indicates that a DfE team has screened all product ingredients for possible environmental and health effects. The site further states that "manufacturers who become DfE partners...have invested heavily in research, development, and reformulation to ensure that their ingredients and finished product line up on the green end of the health and environmental spectrum while maintaining or improving product performance." The EPA iCleaner listing can be found at: http://www.epa.gov/dfe/pubs/projects/formulat/formpart.htm#7
As an innovator in product engineering and a leading provider of materials and materials packaging to the semiconductor industry, ATMI incorporates two core principles to help guide its approach to product design: 'The 12 Principles of Green Engineering' and 'The 12 Principles of Green Chemistry.'
For this product, ATMI partnered with a customer to deliver an enabling cleaning solution used in the semiconductor fabrication process. With the aid of ATMI's High Productivity Development tools and the '12 Principles' approaches, the team developed a novel, low odor, and environmentally benign formulation that delivers a time- and cost-effective in-line cleaning method. Baseline cleanliness has been an area of concern for the integrated circuit (IC) production community, and as dimensions of the most advanced ICs continue to shrink, it is now critical to clean not only the wafer surface, but also other surfaces in the wafer processing environment. In addition to the safety and environmental aspects, the product's improved cleaning performance compared favorably to the previous method with both increased tool throughput and no added defects.
"Our High Productivity Development capabilities continue to enable breakthrough solutions quickly for our partners and customers," noted Tod Higinbotham, ATMI's Executive Vice President and General Manager of Microelectronics. "We're pleased to be able to collaborate in this way to meet our customer's goals efficiently. Meeting the EPA requirements for the DfE designation is certainly another first and positive step forward in chemistry and materials development."