Visit our new website

Contact Sales

Prefer not to receive Advantage?

March 2007

Welcome to Rhetech ADVANTAGE ™ A quarterly publication of Rhetech, Inc. In this edition … Case History: Yield Crash! A look-alike SRD kills hundreds of wafers ... Don't find yourself in the dark: SST/SAT Equinox Upgrades … New Products: Levitronix, leading edge pump technology … And, as always, Frequently Asked Questions … Don't Be Fooled ... Competitor Rhetech Advantage Competitor Look-alike SRDs built by other companies often use inferior quality materials and construction - The result can be devastating yield issues It looked like any other SRD, but closer inspection revealed that the tool was not built by Semitool or Rhetech. Why the scrutiny? In just a few days, hundreds of wafers went through this tool and had to be scrapped because of high particle counts. What Happened? This particular SRD manufacturer used spot welds to connect the main body of their N2 manifold to the bowl mounting bracket. One of these spot welds failed, and over time, normal tool vibration moved the N2 manifold away from the bowl. Particles entered the bowl and ruined hundreds of wafers. In contrast, Semitool and Rhetech N2 manifolds have more robust and durable TIG welds. While Semitool and Rhetech have never seen a TIG weld failure on one of our N2 manifiolds, we have seen other spot weld failures on look-alike SRDs built by other companies. What can you do? We recommend that All SRD users check their N2 manifolds once a month. We've updated our SRD maintenance manual to cover this and you can download a copy of the N2 maintenance page on our SRD FAQ# 24 webpage. And Remember: If your goal is real process and production reliability, buy a real Semitool/Rhetech Spin rinser dryer. Find out how Rhetech can repair or restore your look-alike SRD with genuine Semitool OEM parts. Technical Updates: SST/SAT/Equinox - Touch Screens, Pentium Boards Your Class 1 SSTs and SATs probably contain CRT touch screen monitors. (See photo at right). These monitors have become obsolete and are no longer supported by the manufacturer. Rhetech has a new flat panel touch screen available to replace your obsolete monitors. (See photo lower right). More details... SST/SAT Touch Screen Upgrade   Class 1 SSTs and SATs were built with 486 or Pentium boards installed. These are no longer supported by the manufacturer, and should be replaced with Pentium III boards. The original Pentiums had a hard drive mounted directly on the computer. The hard drive is now part of the new assembly. (See photo at right). More Details... SST/SAT Pentium Board Upgrade         Equinox tools were built with touch screen monitors. The front monitor also contained the main computer, a 486 Pentium. The 486 and monitor are no longer supported by the manufacturer and have been replaced with Pentium III computers and flat screen monitors. More Details... Equinox Touch Screen Upgrade   Can leading edge pump technology be incorporated into my remanufactured tool? This is the question that Rhetech has answered for customers in the US and Europe over the past year. The Levitronix pump is now is now standard on gold plating systems made by Semitool. It offers users significant advantages compared to previous designs. When a traditional rotary pump design is used, there can be auto-plating of gold onto the pump internal bearing components during normal operation. The Levitronix design completely eliminates this issue, resulting in increased uptime, much longer operating life and lower cost of ownership. Levitronix pumps are smaller, quieter and easier to maintain than traditional pumps. (See photo at right) Operating cost is another advantage. Some customers are reporting significant projected cost savings from the Levitronix electrically driven pump as compared to the pneumatically driven designs.     Rhetech has built and shipped several gold plating tools using Levitronix pumps. One was an LT series tool that marked the first use of these pumps in this legacy platform. Along with plating tools, Rhetech has also built some of the first Semitools that use Levitronix in batch-scale surface preparation tools. In 2006, we shipped a SAT tool to a European customer utilzing the new pumps for dilute HF and SCI. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Check the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), our illustrated SRD and system tool technical support guide ... SRD FAQs, System Tool FAQs   Need live technical support for your tool? Rhetech's ready to help. Privacy Policy Rhetech respects your time and privacy. Our electronic mailing list is not shared with anyone outside of our company. It's only used to send our friends and customers this quarterly update on technical developments, case histories and new products. If you do not wish to receive the Advantage newsletter in the future, you can be permanently taken off our list. Do you have a used SRD or system tool that you’d like to sell, trade-in, or exchange for spare parts credit? Contact us and let us know the serial number, condition, and include digital photos. We'll quickly contact you and let you know if this is on our current purchase list.