Advanced semiconductors are diva-like in their sensitivity to the tiniest disruptions. As the chips travel from one production step to the next, dust, metal and other environmental particulates measured in parts per quadrillion can degrade their performance, just as a light cough or touch of pollen in the air might throw off a singer’s aria.
But rather than lighter-than-usual applause, the cost is measured in millions of dollars. Losing one point of yield to contaminants can be a $500 million loss for a large chipmaker like TSMC or Intel.
For manufacturers of chips with very specialized uses—think a critical optical sensor in a car or a biosensor chip in a wearable medical device--“one of their major objectives is defect control,” said Bertrand Loy, CEO of Entegris, the world’s largest electronics materials company. “It’s a constant effort. They’re trying to remove large contaminants that can be the source of killer defects that impact their yields. And that can be a very expensive proposition.”
Losing one point of yield to contaminants can be a loss of $500 million a year for a company like TSMC or Intel, Loy said.
Entegris manufactures the specialized containers and filters, called FOUPS (Front-Opening-Unified Pods) that transport and protect the etched silicon wafers during the phases of production. “We are the lifeblood of those fabs,” Loy enthuses, referring to semiconductor production facilities. “And yet nobody knows about us.”
Nobody outside of the chips industry, perhaps. In June, it was announced that Massachusetts-headquartered Entegris, with 8,000 employees globally and $3.5 billion in net sales last year, will receive up to $75 million in U.S. CHIPS and Science Act funding, as well as a 25% capital investment federal tax credit, for the construction of a 100,000 square foot, two-phase manufacturing center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Currently, FOUPS are exclusively manufactured in Asia. Entegris is the largest producer of the containers, with manufacturing centered on its 195,000-square-foot facility in Kulim, Malaysia.
The endeavor won’t just help bring back semiconductor manufacturing to the U.S.; it will help bring it back to Colorado Springs, which was an innovation hub in the early days of semiconductors, before everything moved to Asia starting in the 1990s. There are other signs of life, too: recently, Microchip announced plants to triple its semiconductor production in Colorado Springs.
Construction is already well underway on the first phase of the plant, which will manufacture FOUPS and is expected to start production in early 2025. The second phase will manufacture advanced liquid filters and purifiers. Once fully running, the two facilities are expected to employ 600 people.
IndustryWeek spoke with Loy about the Colorado Springs facility and where it fits into rebuilding the U.S. semiconductor ecosystem in the United States.
IndustryWeek: Why are you building this new plant?
Loy: With much semiconductor manufacturing having moved to Asia over the last 30 years, a lot of our manufacturing investments have been closer to the fabs being built in Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere.
As the U.S. administration is trying to reassert semiconductor manufacturing, they have to take into account how to create the conditions for the right ecosystem to exist and operate smoothly. We're part of that effort. We are reshoring the manufacturing of critical components for semiconductor makers. That’s what this investment in Colorado is about.