Whether it's a millimetre-small fastener, complex precision optics or metre-sized machinery parts, the cleanliness requirements for high-tech components are becoming stricter and more demanding in numerous branches of industry.
Although the exact specifications vary depending on the part, sector and application, most conventional cleaning systems are unable to achieve the result required to ensure consistent product quality. Ecoclean has been supplying solutions for precision and high-purity cleaning applications for many years. With its experience, the company is constantly developing cleaning systems, technologies and processes for this sector, including specially designed feature packages.
Demands on the performance and reliability of components and parts have increased enormously and continue to rise, particularly in sectors such as the semiconductor supply industry, optical and optoelectronic industry, thin-film technology, vacuum, laser, and analysis technologies, as well as the medical device industry. This has an impact on parts cleaning.
Higher cleanliness requirements due to new products and processes
When it comes to components for semiconductor production equipment, due to new developments in wafer steppers and scanners for EUV lithography, for instance, mechanical components are becoming more and more complex in shape and heavier and larger. Today, the diameters of these workpieces can be anything
Key criteria for selecting the most suitable cleaning process and plant technology are the required level of cleanliness, the type of contamination to be removed, and the material and geometry of the respective component. Based on this, it is possible to determine which and how many process steps are necessary with which cleaning medium and which mechanics. Aspects such as the quality of the rinsing medium and the drying technology are included just as much in this consideration, as are cleanliness-compliant parts handling and the prevailing environmental conditions, for instance connection or integration into a cleanroom.
If the standard ‘oil-free and grease-free’ such as Grade 4 is defined as the specification, Ecoclean supplies compact and cost-efficient full-vacuum single-chamber systems, whose system technology, media routing, media preparation, and design have been specially adapted for high-end cleaning applications. These systems, which are operated with environmentally compatible solvents or water-based cleaning agents, can achieve consistent results that meet such requirements, even if it concerns geometrically complex components. Process options that can be combined in almost any way, such as injection flood washing, spray, high-pressure, immersion, ultrasonic, megasonic and plasma cleaning, as well as Ultrasonic Plus or Pulsated Pressure Cleaning (PPC), contribute to this. Often, a modified alcohol (partially polar solvent) is used in these applications due to the plus points associated with the media, such as their ability to clean different materials. The limit of what can be achieved with these systems is, for example, Grade 2.
Especially when it comes to large parts, chamber cleaning systems offer advantages due to the process mechanics concentrated in the working chamber, for example PPC, ultrasonics or megasonics and injection flood washing. To use these also to meet Grade 2 or corresponding cleanliness specifications, Ecoclean manufactures EcoCvela double-chamber systems that use aqueous media for cleaning. In addition to the special high-purity features, separate circuits for cleaning and rinsing media ensure that the required cleaning result is achieved reliably and consistently. If, for example, due to a wide variety of materials, high throughput requirements or cleanliness specifications corresponding to Grade 1, the cleaning tasks cannot be solved with a chamber system, a multi-bath ultrasonic cleaning system is called for.
With its UCMSmartLine or UCMPerformanceLine series consisting of standardised modules, the SBS Ecoclean Group also offers efficient solutions in this area. Thanks to the electrical and control technology integrated into the modules for the process steps of cleaning, rinsing, drying, loading, and unloading, as well as a flexible transport system, these can be easily adapted to the respective task and can also be extended if necessary. Individually designed multi-bath ultrasonic cleaning systems such as the UCM HighLine are typically used in high-end applications, for example in the semiconductor supply, laser, and optical industries.
