Semiconductor Tooling Services Inc

Background

Semiconductor Tooling Services, Inc. (STS) was recently recognized as the 16th fastest growing privately held company in Silicon Valley. We have combined award-winning business practices with industry-leading technical innovations to provide OEMs and Fabs worldwide with the best possible solutions in adhesive bonding, molding, and cleaning.

Founded in 1996, the owners John Lilleland and Rina Esquivel-Tanchico had a vision to use their advanced technological knowledge and develop new solutions to benefit a new market. Beginning with a strong foundation of silicone elastomer experience, this vision quickly matured into the development of high performance elastomeric materials much needed in the semiconductor industry. For over a decade, STS has pioneered materials and methods that have become standards in semiconductor manufacturing processes. Our specialized materials and applications are tailored to each individual customer need. Today we are a cutting edge solution provider in our markets.

Technical Expertise

Our mission is to use our extensive expertise in providing services ranging from initial material consultations to complete turn-key production solutions. Our staff consists of employees with industry-leading experience in chemistry, material sciences & analysis, engineering, and advanced manufacturing. This allows us to create true one-stop solutions from initial tooling design to final outsourced manufacturing processes.

Facilities

STS currently occupies 3 buildings with more than 70,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing and administrative facilities. Our facilities include a full CNC machine shop, class 10,000 and 1,000 manufacturing clean rooms, and an exclusive class 100 precision cleaning area. We are headquartered in San Jose, California with additional facilities located nearby in Morgan Hill, California. In addition, we have full-time representatives in Europe and Asia to ensure customer support worldwide.

STS has dedicated itself to developing cutting edge elastomeric materials to be used in bonding high technology manufacturing components. We have successfully developed materials that show a wide range of electrical and thermal conductivity; all with a low enough modulus to ensure that any CTE mismatch between the two surface materials will not threaten the integrity of the bonded components or the bond itself.

Elastomer Bonding 101

For years the task of joining two disparate materials into a single unit was done through different methods, one of which was indium bonding. The main drawback of this (and related methods) was when materials with varying coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) were bonded together for an application - such as a ceramic plate with a metallic base. When these components were put into a high operating temperature the CTE mismatch would stress the bond layer, cracking or severing it.

Bonding Materials Stock and Custom

STS has worked with our materials division Xcelomer to produce a series of highly specialized materials that are designed to provide the proper balance of thermal, electrical, and shear modulus in a bonding application. This has resulted in a large library of off-the-shelf materials for many applications, as well as affording the company the opportunity to provide custom-designed elastomers for unique requirments. STS can provide a bond solution for many situations by using fill materials to achieve the desired tensile, electrical and chemical properties.

Refurbishment

Under normal operating conditions, ion implanter process wheels are subject to considerable wear, damage and particulate contamination. To ensure optimal performance and yield, these tools require a regimen of scheduled maintenance. At STS, the refurbishment process for these tools include complete disassembly, decontamination, repair, replacement of worn parts and broken components, reassembly and extensive functional testing.

Decontamination

Each wheel undergoes careful initial inspection for damaged parts as well as for overall wheel condition. The decontamination process includes hydrohoning each wheel, heat sink and part with a low-pressure abrasive slurry. All components are then meticulously refinished using a highly specialized process to improve surface quality.

Coating & Repair

Refurbishment includes a complex process in which each heat sink is coated with a thin layer of elastomer, specifically formulated for a finely tuned rheology. This material is designed to create a more effective thermal interface for the wafer. All replacement parts are manufactured onsite in our CNC-equipped machine shop. Prior to assembly, components undergo an ultrasonic cleaning plus two DI rinses in our class 1,000 cleanroom. Extensive testing takes place at each step of reassembly to insure precise tolerances. After final assembly, each wheel is checked again for functionality and balanced to +/- 1 gram or less at operating speed. Prior to delivery, wheels are double bagged in class 100 packaging. At the customers option, special gas filled 'clean' shipping containers are available.

Custom Materials, Efficient Engineering

With extensive experience in both implant refurbishment and elastomer bonding STS has continued to evolve the use of elastomer in plasma environments. This has lead to the development of creating specialty molded parts out of variations of our elastomers. These parts (specialty o-rings, plugs and gaskets) have begun to show up in the chambers of major semiconductor manufacturers.

Additionally, with the expertise of STS' machine shop used to develop molds - the ability to create and customize these components can be part of any development process. The customer need not design an assembly to fit a pre-designed plug or ring, now the plug or ring can be designed and produced to fit the assembly.

By exhibiting chemistry that is proven non-contaminating in the chamber environment and the ability to modify the durometer and chemistry of the final parts, STS' molded products can be introduced as a durable and clean customizable alternative to off-the-shelf products.

Precision Cleaning

In an effort to help our customers streamline their supply chains STS offers a full range of precision cleaning services for components and finished assemblies. These include extensive processes for cleaning new and refurbished etch and implant components & multiple substrates and comprehensive post cleaning surface analysis.

Cleaning Facilities and Equipment

During the cleaning process STS takes many precautions to ensure that cross contamination is avoided while processing components. All in-process and final cleaning areas are fully segregated for contamination control. The STS cleaning process begins in a class 10,000 clean room where incoming inspection and initial cleaning steps are performed. Surface critical cleaning, baking, final inspection and vacuum seal packaging processes are completed in a Class 100 clean room.

Processing Techniques

STS uses a Single use bath batch processing that utilizes semiconductor grade chemicals and clean room qualified materials. All process conditions are controlled, monitored and documented using process travelers to ensure optimum surface integrity of cleaned components.

Material Capabilities and Experience

STS has extensive experience working with and cleaning:

• New and refurbished Etch and Implant components:
• Etch ESCs, Showerheads, Chamber Liners, Etc.
• Implant Vision, GSDs, Etc.
• Substrates cleaned include both metallics and exotic ceramics
• All process fixtures and baths are 300mm component capable

Post Cleaning Surface Analysis

In addition to industry leading process, materials and environmental control on our cleaning processes, STS has the added capabilities for examining the surface of a cleaned part. These include:

• CMM dimensional measurement
• Surface profilometer measurement
• Eddy current meters for coating thickness
• SEM high magnification for grain boundary imaging
• UV black light inspection for non-visual contamination