A highly effective moisture removal technique for front opening unified pods (FOUPs) can significantly improve the production yield of semiconductor manufacturing industries by minimizing the number of faulty dies rejected due to humidity related defects in silicon wafers. In this study, FOUP purging using clean dry air (CDA) was applied using conventional and diffuser purge method. An innovative laminar air curtain was also used to increase the performance of the FOUP purging techniques. These moisture removal techniques were applied in an open FOUP connected to a mini-environment in which a local exhaust ventilation (LEV) was installed. A novel smoke flow visualization technique and particle image velocimetry (PIV) were employed to visualize the flow pattern inside the FOUP and to generate a velocity vector field from the flow field. In addition, digital humidity sensors were installed inside the FOUP to evaluate the performance of the techniques. The flow analysis and humidity data show that the air curtain can significantly improve the performance of the purge methods. The observations demonstrate that the application of the air curtain, in combination with diffuser purge, can significantly improve the FOUP cleanliness. The LEV system was not found to have influence on the flow field inside the FOUP.

This study investigated the efficacy of a novel correlation of power input, energy dissipation rate and mixing time as a potential route to identify the orbitally shaken bioreactor (OSB) system. The Buckingham’s π-theorem was used to designate and transform dimensionless Newton numbers with five relevant power input variables. These variables were empirically varied to evaluate the correlation among the dimensionless numbers. The Newton number decreases with the increased shaking frequency and filling volume. Previous work has focused on optimizing the mixing process by evaluating different shaking and agitation mixing methods. We establish a new mixing process and assessable measurement of the mixing time in the OSB. An innovative explanation of mixing time for the thermal method is proposed. The optimal mixing time is independent of the temperature of filled liquid. The dimensionless mixing number remained constant in the turbulent regime and increasing with the increased liquid viscosity and filling volume. Our findings revealed that the observed correlation is a practical tool to figure the power consumption and mixing efficiency as cell cultivation in all OSB scales and is fully validated when scaling–up system.

Moisture removal techniques such as purge have been developed for the front opening unified pod (FOUP) in the semiconductor industry. The FOUP purge can significantly increase the quality of integrated circuit (IC) products. An experimental model of a simulated clean room, was designed at Taipei Tech. A mini environment (ME) and a FOUP were installed inside the model. Smoke flow visualization technique was performed with the assistance of an innovative laser light sheet generation system. A homemade smoke generator simulates the moist air flow pattern into the FOUP. The FOUP top view flow pattern was recorded by a Hamamatsu digital camera. The particle image velocimetry (PIV) in the FOUP horizontal plane was analyzed. Moreover, the relative humidity (RH) was monitored inside the FOUP. The results show that a purge flow rate of 200 LPM is the optimum purge flow rate for moisture removal performance inside the FOUP. The findings of the present study could significantly increase the quality of chip products in semiconductor manufacturing, decreasing product defect rates and significantly reducing energy consumption.

In this study, Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) blended with Polyethylene glycol (PEG), Monosodium glutamate (MSG) and Glutamic acid (GA) was cast on a reverse osmosis membrane to form a composite membrane. It is expected that the ether group can increase the CO₂ affinity of the membrane. Sodium tetraborate (Borax) as a crosslinker can increase membrane basicity and glutamic acid (salt) can provide an enhanced transport mechanism, thereby improving the permeability and selectivity of carbon dioxide. FTIR spectra show that the thickness of coating is sufficiently low, while SEM results show that PVA-PEG series have a dense surface, and particles are observed on the surface of MSG/GA series. The gas permeance and separation performance of the composite membrane was tested using a single gas. Results showed that CO₂ had higher permeance (GPU) at lower pressure differential. PEG with an ether group had the greatest effect on improving CO₂ permeance and selectivity. However, MSG and GA with amine groups could not effectively improve CO₂ selectivity due to solubility. The best coating solution was provided by PVA-PEG-1.2. The CO₂ selectivity of the composite membrane was 10.05 with a pressure differential of 1.00 bar in a humid environment and no obvious deterioration was observed over a 10-day period. Borax can improve selectivity, water absorption, and thermal stability while avoiding the need for high temperature and long crosslinking time of aldehydes, which makes it possible to be used in a PVA carbon dioxide separation membrane.