ENTG Company Profile

Entegris, Inc. is a leading global developer, manufacturer and supplier of microcontamination control products, specialty chemicals and advanced materials handling solutions for manufacturing processes in the semiconductor and other high-technology industries. Entegris seeks to leverage its unique breadth of capabilities to create value for its customers by developing mission-critical solutions to maximize manufacturing yields and enable higher device performance.

To produce faster and more powerful semiconductors, manufacturing technology has been rapidly moving to smaller process nodes, adopting new device architecture, such as FinFET transistors and 3D-NAND, and utilizing new and innovative manufacturing materials. Maximizing yields in this increasingly complex manufacturing environment requires the effective development and application of these new materials, a reliable and consistent supply, contamination-free transportation, storage and delivery, seamless integration into the semiconductor manufacturing process, and even higher levels of purity and contaminant control throughout the entire process.
Entegris is uniquely positioned to deliver advanced and specialty materials, free from contamination, with optimized packaging and delivery solutions, and in-process filtration and purification to ensure that liquid chemistries and gases are free from contaminants before reaching the wafer. Our technology portfolio includes approximately 20,000 standard and customized products and solutions to achieve the highest levels of purity and performance that are essential to the manufacture of semiconductors, flat panel displays, light emitting diodes, or LEDs, high-purity chemicals, solar cells, gas lasers, optical and magnetic storage devices, and critical components for aerospace, glass manufacturing and biomedical applications. The majority of our products are consumed at various times throughout the manufacturing process, with demand driven in part by the level of semiconductor and other manufacturing activity.

Our business is organized and operated in three operating segments which align with the key elements of the advanced semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. The Specialty Chemicals and Engineered Materials (SCEM) segment provides high-performance and high-purity process chemistries, gases, and materials and safe and efficient delivery systems to support semiconductor and other advanced manufacturing processes. The Advanced Materials Handling (AMH) segment develops solutions to monitor, protect, transport, and deliver critical liquid chemistries and substrates for a broad set of applications in the semiconductor industry and other high-technology industries. The Microcontamination Control (MC) segment offers solutions to purify critical liquid chemistries and gases used in semiconductor manufacturing processes and other high-technology industries. While these segments have separate products and technical know-how, they share a single, global sales force, unified core systems and processes, global technology centers, strategic and technology roadmaps, and a focus on a common set of customers. The Company leverages its expertise from these three segments technologies to create new and increasingly integrated solutions for its customers.

Semiconductors, or integrated circuits, are key components in modern electronic devices such as computers, smart phones, tablets, home appliances, digital cameras, televisions, light bulbs and automobiles. The manufacture of semiconductors requires hundreds of highly complex and sensitive manufacturing steps, during which a variety of materials are repeatedly applied to a silicon wafer to build integrated circuits on the wafer surface. We provide specialty materials and chemicals utilized in many of these process steps, offer a broad range of products to monitor, protect, transport, and deliver these critical process materials during the manufacturing process and provide systems to purify liquid chemistry and gases throughout the manufacturing process. The process steps that rely most heavily on our products are described below.
Deposition. The two main deposition processes are physical vapor deposition, where a thin film is deposited on a wafer surface in a low-pressure gas environment, and chemical vapor deposition, where a thin film is deposited on a wafer surface using a gas medium and a chemical bonding process. In addition, electro-plating technology is used for the deposition of low resistance conductive materials such as copper. Our advanced precursor materials and electro-plating chemicals are utilized to enable the composition, uniformity and thickness of deposited films and our filtration and purification products are used to remove defects and contaminants from liquids and gases used during the deposition process. These products are critical to ensuring the performance of the semiconductor circuit and, consequently, the manufacturing yield.
Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP). CMP is a polishing process used by semiconductor manufacturers to planarize, or flatten, many of the layers of material that have been deposited upon silicon wafers. We offer a broad range of products used by semiconductor manufacturers during and immediately following the CMP process. Our formulated cleaning chemistries remove residue from wafer surfaces after the CMP process, and prevent subsequent corrosion. Our filtration and purification systems are used to filter liquid slurries and cleaning chemistries in order to remove oversized particles and contaminants that can cause defects on a wafer’s surface. Our roller brushes are used in conjunction with our cleans chemistries to clean the wafer after completion of the CMP process in order to prepare the wafer for subsequent operations and our pad conditioners are used to prepare the surface of the CMP polishing pad prior to every polishing cycle.

Photolithography. Photolithography is a process repeated many times that uses light to print, or pattern, complex circuit patterns onto the wafer. To print the projected optical pattern, the wafer is coated with a thin film of light-sensitive material, called photoresist. Light is projected to expose the photoresist, which is then developed (somewhat like photographic film) to create a stenciled image pattern. Our liquid filtration and liquid dispense systems play a vital role in assuring the pure, accurate and uniform dispense of photoresists onto the wafer so that manufacturers can achieve acceptable yields in the manufacturing process, and our gas microcontamination control systems eliminate airborne contaminants that can disrupt effective photolithography processes.

Etch and Resist Strip. During the etch process, specific areas of the film that have been deposited on the surface of a wafer are removed to leave a desired circuit pattern. After the etch process, the hardened resist needs to be completely removed. Our formulated chemical solutions remove photo resists and post-etch residues, and our gas filters and purifiers help assure the purity of the process gas streams used in the etch process. We expect an increased need for wet chemistries capable of selectively removing material at advanced technology nodes to drive demand for selective wet etch formulations.

Ion Implant. Ion implantation is a key technology for forming transistors and is used many times during semiconductor fabrication. During ion implantation, wafers are bombarded by a beam of electrically-charged ions, called dopants, which change the electrical properties of the exposed surface films. Our Safe Delivery Source® (SDS®) and VAC® (Vacuum Actuated Cylinders) gas delivery systems assure the safe, effective and efficient delivery of the toxic gases necessary for the implant process. In addition, our proprietary low temperature plasma coating processes for core components are critical elements of ion implantation equipment.
Wet Cleaning. Ultra-high purity chemicals and photoresists of precise composition are used to clean the wafers before and after several of the processes described above, to pattern circuit images and to remove photoresists after etch. The cleaning chemicals must be maintained at very high purity levels without the presence of foreign material such as particles, ions or organic contaminants in order to maintain manufacturing yields and avoid defective products. Our proprietary formulated cleaning chemistries are used in these wet cleaning processes and our liquid filters and purifiers assure the purity of these chemicals.

Transportation and Protection. Our wafer and reticle carriers are high-purity “micro-environments” that carry wafers between each of the above process steps, protecting them from damage and contamination during transportation. Front-end wafer processing can involve hundreds of steps and take several weeks. As a result, a batch of 25 fully processed wafers, the standard number of wafers that can be transported in one of our 200 mm and 300 mm products, can be worth several million dollars. It is essential that the wafer be well protected to minimize the risk of any damage. Our products enable semiconductor manufacturers to: minimize contamination (often measured in parts per trillion); protect semiconductor devices from electrostatic discharge and shock; avoid process interruptions; prevent damage or abrasion to wafers and materials during automated processing caused by contact with other materials or equipment; prevent damage due to abrasion or vibration of work-in-process and finished goods during transportation to and from customer and supplier facilities; and eliminate the dangers associated with handling toxic chemicals.
Many of the processes used to manufacture semiconductors are also used to manufacture photovoltaic cells, LEDs, flat panel displays and magnetic storage devices resulting in the need for similar filtration, purification, control and measurement capabilities. We seek to leverage our products, technologies and expertise to address these important market opportunities.