Bearing the brunt of contamination control operations

摘要

Bearings are key components in dry vacuum pumps -their reliability and operating life have a significant effect on pump operating costs. Here, Nick Dowding discusses how they can play a pivotal role in reducing whole life costs of dry vacuum pumps applications such as semiconductor manufacturing where a clean environment is vital to avoid contamination of the product. Dry vacuum pumps play a key role in a variety of industrial environments. Production processes for semi-conductors, solar panels, flat panel displays as well as vacuum degassing applications in metal processing all require a clean environment that is free of any contaminants that may adversely affect the process. As a result, working chambers are normally flooded with gas and evacuated using dry vacuum pumps to create a working vacuum. In semi-conductor manufacturing, the etching tools need to operate in a vacuum chamber whilst they lay down miniature grids of electronic circuitry to silicon wafers. This process is so intricate that all contaminants must be removed from the production chamber before work can begin. So it is common to see rows of dry vacuum pumps installed under production floors in many semi-conductor-manufacturing plants.