When the mechanical arm of the ASM machine fed the 8,427th wafer into the reaction chamber, the SiC coating sensor embedded in the cavity wall was collecting temperature data at a frequency of 2,000 times per second. The thermal radiation coefficient of its β-SiC coating was stable at 0.92±0.01, which was 60% lower than the temperature measurement error of the traditional Al₂O₃ coating.
In extreme semiconductor manufacturing environments, our patented silicon carbide (SiC) coating technology is redefining high-temperature protection standards. This nanoscale coating prepared by the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process has a Mohs hardness of 9.2, equivalent to 90% of natural diamonds, yet it possesses comprehensive performance that traditional materials cannot match:
High-temperature stability and chemical inertness
When the temperature of the reaction chamber soared to 1600℃, the oxidation rate of the SiC coating was still lower than 0.1μm/h (ASTM G54 standard test data), which was attributed to the spontaneously formed 2nm thick SiO₂ protective film on its surface. After a 5000-hour accelerated aging test in a highly corrosive atmosphere containing Cl₂, HF, etc., the surface roughness change rate of the coating was less than 3%, perfectly solving the problem of particle release of the graphite substrate in the PECVD process.
Double purification guarantee
The base material is made of high-purity graphite formed by isostatic pressing (ash content < 5ppm), combined with a 99.999% purity SiC coating, which keeps the overall impurity content at the ppb level. This combination enables the device to reduce the background impurity concentration by two orders of magnitude in the MBE (Molecular Beam Epitaxy) process.
The art of thermal management
The material combination exhibits an astonishing heating rate of 35 ° C /s (measured data from a 200mm wafer), with an isotropic thermal conductivity of 120W/m·K. Infrared thermal imaging in the ASM Eagle 12 reaction chamber shows that the surface temperature deviation of the 300mm wafer is only ±1.8℃, which is attributed to our original gradient transition layer design - by controlling the directional growth of β -sic whiskers, the coefficient of thermal expansion presents a perfect linear transition from the substrate to the surface.
Structural reliability
The stress buffering architecture optimized by finite element analysis ensures that the interinterface shear strength remains at 98% of the initial value after 100,000 thermal cycles (RT→1200℃). In the SEMICON West live demonstration in 2024, our test sample still passed the helium mass spectrometry leak detection test (leak rate < 1×10⁻⁹ Pa·m³/s) after being subjected to rapid heating and cooling at 1500 ° C for 5 minutes.
