With the optimization and upgrading of the market environment and the favorable drive of national policies, the demand for integrated circuits in downstream industries such as new energy vehicles, intelligent driving, intelligent terminals and 5G has surged. As a typical high-end industry, the manufacturing of integrated circuits is extremely demanding on the production environment and process. Among them, the construction of clean rooms is a key link in the manufacture of integrated circuits, which has a crucial impact on the performance of the final product.

As one of the earliest engineering companies specializing in the installation of clean room mechanical and electrical equipment in China, China Electronic System Engineering Fourth Construction Co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as “CLP Fourth Company”) can provide integrated circuit manufacturing enterprises with design, procurement, project management, construction, facility management, clean room supporting product manufacturing and other integrated “turnkey” engineering services.

In 2021, in the construction of integrated circuit workshop clean room project for Beijing Power Collection Holdings Co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as “Beijing Power Collection”), in order to meet customers’ requirements for high precision and high stability of environmental monitoring, CLP No. 4 chose to cooperate with Vaxala. The industrial temperature and humidity transmitter HMT330, intrinsics safe temperature and humidity transmitter HMT370EX and temperature and humidity transmitter HMT120 and other series of products have been successfully applied in the clean room of Beijing power collection plant. Since the application, the relevant instruments and transmitters have been running stably and measuring accurately.

Every inch will show to create a high standard of clean workshop

Wearing tightly closed special protective clothing and shoe covers, after a strict workshop elimination process, and then through several independent isolation of the workshop gate, the operator can enter the strict standard of the integrated circuit factory clean room. Different from general industrial products, the important steps of integrated circuits from monocrystalline silicon wafer manufacturing to IC manufacturing and then to IC packaging need to be completed in a clean room. Whether it is tiny dust and debris, or intangible ambient temperature and humidity, etc., will have a significant impact on the manufacturing process.

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“The manufacturing of integrated circuits has very high requirements on the production environment, requiring extremely accurate and stable measurements of parameters such as temperature and humidity to ensure a stable and reliable production environment.” Zhang Qi, general manager of the Market Management Center of CLP No. 4 Company, said, “In 2020, as early as the bidding stage of the Beijing collector clean room project, we know that Vaisala’s related products can fully meet customers’ demanding needs for temperature and humidity measurement. So we decided to bid with Vaisala products as the measuring instruments, which also started a series of deep cooperation with Vaisala.”

With the upgrading of China’s integrated circuit manufacturing process, the degree of cleanliness required for its manufacturing process has also risen, which puts forward higher and higher requirements for the construction of clean rooms. According to reports, the integrated circuit process manufactured by Beijing Power Collection Institute has currently broken through 28 nm, and the corresponding clean room ambient temperature error is ±0.3°C, and the humidity error is ±3%. Once the temperature and humidity break the limit error, it will significantly affect the yield, performance and reliability of the product.

For these applications, Vaisala products such as HMT330, HMT120 and HMT370EX play an important role. Among them, the HMT330 can achieve accurate measurement in harsh environments and demanding demands, and can be customized for different application environments to meet a variety of customer needs. The HMT120 is a temperature and humidity transmitter designed for clean rooms and other environments, and the intelligent measurement probe can be replaced on site to easily achieve measurement traceability.

It is worth mentioning that the temperature and humidity transmitter HMT370EX has an “intrinsically safe” function. This product will not cause accidents or damage to equipment, even in the case of misoperation or failure. So far, the product has received a number of intrinsic safety certifications. In addition to measuring relative humidity and temperature, the HMT370EX also supports the output of other humidity parameters such as dew point temperature, wet bulb temperature, absolute humidity, mixing ratio, water concentration, water mass fraction, water vapor pressure and enthalpy values.

“The measurement accuracy of Vaisala products not only fully meets the design standards of clean rooms, but also significantly compreses the standard error range: reducing it to one-third of the benchmark error, reaching humidity ±1% and temperature ±0.1°C, fully guaranteeing the reliable operation of clean rooms.” Zhang Qi added, “Vaisala’s measuring instruments were the ideal choice for this project because of the overall accuracy and stability of the project.”

A swift response to break barriers across oceans

For sophisticated engineering construction, the importance of timeliness is self-evident. The products and materials required by the project often have a strict supply cycle, and the absence of a key material will directly affect the progress of the project. The ups and downs of the global epidemic have added a touch of uncertainty to the supply time of the product.

“International logistics needs to be booked in advance, and due to the impact of the epidemic, some scarce materials and products need to be booked six months or more in advance.” “However, the project cycle of Beijing Power Collection is very tight, and high-quality measurement products are of great significance to the completion of the project, and we were very worried about whether Vaisala’s products could arrive in time,” Zhang Qi said.

The matter is urgent. In the context of tight product supply, Vaisala and its agents actively cooperated, locked the products needed for the project in advance, and fully coordinated internal and external resources to deliver the products to customers as scheduled when the initial purchase intention was reached with CLP Four and the formal purchase contract was not signed.