Many industrial and research production procedures use process gases and generate waste gases. These waste gases, considered greenhouse gases, are toxic and/or highly flammable and very often pose a significant risk to production facilities and the environment. The semiconductor industry, for instance, uses perfluorocarbons, whose global warming potential is extremely high.
Combining and transporting different gases into a fab’s central waste gas system might produce highly flammable and highly explosive gaseous mixtures, which in the past has occasionally caused the total loss of entire production facilities. Particles contained within gases may also cause exhaust blockages. To eliminate these risks, process waste gases need to be treated at the “Point of Use” (POU) where harmful exhausts are abated immediately. In the early 1990s no appropriate and comprehensive technical solution had been available yet.
Since 1992 the POU equipment, developed and manufactured by DAS Environmental Expert GmbH, has mastered the task. DAS equipment can be used for practically all modern coating and etching equipment of the chip industry. Waste gases are treated safely and in an environmentally compatible way, with exhaust gases meeting the standards of the TA-Luft (German Clean Air Regulations).
DAS technology is based on a flexible, integrated product concept. The smallest equipment fits into a closet of less than a 1 square meter footprint. DAS technology is fully automated and sensor-controlled and meets the highest certified safety standards.
In the field of waste gas treatment, DAS currently holds 14 registered patents and additional usage rights for important technologies and technological solutions.
Service Semiconductor Industry
Service teams for system maintenance are ready and available 24/7 to ensure complete service, every day, around the clock and at all fab sites. Service teams consist of DAS employees either stationed at DAS branches or who, for large-scale fabs like Infineon, Dresden, maintain a service base directly at client locations. At times DAS trained employees of the Partner or Client Company may also fulfill the service.
Appropriate software tools and service network connections allow for remotely supervising the DAS systems – either from within the production facility or across continents and oceans from the DAS EE home base in Dresden. DASMON is a monitoring tool that was specifically developed by DAS to remotely supervise waste gas abatement systems.
