On April 19th, at a high-end fluorine material development and application seminar hosted by the China Fluorosilicon Organic Materials Industry Association, several attending experts stated that China's fluorine materials are in an embarrassing situation in the fields of photoresists and semiconductors, where they can be made upstream but cannot be used downstream. Therefore, optimization is needed in purification technology, product stability, and other aspects.
Nie Jun, Chairman of Jiangsu Jicui Photosensitive Electronic Materials Research Institute Co., Ltd., believes that metal ion impurities are the biggest obstacle to the entry of domestic fluorine materials into high-end application fields. "The metal ions in fluorine materials can affect the performance of chips," he explained, stating that containing a small amount of metal impurities may cause all chips to break.
"How to completely remove metal ions from fluorine materials? Currently, we have not mastered this technology," Nie Jun said regretfully. In the process of photoresist preparation, from the stirring rod in the laboratory to every section of the pipeline in industrial scale, the quality of photoresist can be affected. Focusing on the purity of materials used throughout the entire process of engineering equipment, engineering management, decoration materials, packaging containers, transportation and storage is not only necessary for the production of photoresist industry, but also helps fluorine material manufacturers improve the long-term stability and batch stability of their products.
It is reported that photoresist is an indispensable material in semiconductor manufacturing, and the quality of photoresist is closely related to the quality of semiconductors. Regarding this, Zhou Pengfei, the R&D project manager of Shandong Dongyue Polymer Materials Co., Ltd., stated that the requirements for the use of ultrapure water and ultrapure chemicals in advanced semiconductor process technology are increasing, and the selection of materials is more important in semiconductor wet process technology. However, the high metal ion leaching of polytetrafluoroethylene in China can also have an impact on the quality and yield of devices.
In addition, Nie Jun and Zhou Pengfei both pointed out that the detection technology for high-purity metal ion precipitation is also very important, and China's fluorine material manufacturers need to carry out targeted research and optimization, and promote industry purification technology innovation through standard inversion. At present, Dongyue has established a trace substance detection platform, which analyzes ppb level metal ion residues in resins through ICP-MS, and can be used to detect and evaluate finished polytetrafluoroethylene products.
"In summary, we hope that domestic enterprises can produce more and higher quality fluorine materials, reduce the foreign imports of photoresist enterprises, and assist in the independent development of domestic photoresists, chips, and semiconductors." Nie Jun said.
Source: China Chemical Daily
