iWons Establishes Production Facility for Semiconductor Equipment Parts New Material 'Iconic'... "Customer Testing Underway"

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunseok Yoo] ICONiC, a semiconductor and display ultra-precision cleaning and coating specialist company, has succeeded in developing core materials for semiconductor equipment parts and is now preparing for full-scale mass production.

ICONiC announced on the 30th that it has completed the establishment of production facilities for ‘ICONiC,’ a core material developed for semiconductor equipment parts, and has started performance testing with its clients.

‘ICONiC,’ developed through over three years of research in collaboration with the Korea Institute of Ceramic Engineering & Technology, is a material that can be used as a focus ring consumable in semiconductor manufacturing etching process equipment. The existing focus ring material mainly uses quartz made of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Focus rings made of quartz are easily worn out when exposed to extreme environments such as high temperature and high pressure during the etching process, requiring periodic replacement.

‘ICONiC’ is made from amorphous ceramic material, offering high durability even in plasma etching environments. While quartz focus rings need to be replaced approximately every 300 hours, focus rings made from ‘ICONiC’ are expected to have about four times longer usage periods compared to the existing ones. Since replacing focus rings requires stopping the process and cleaning the equipment, using ‘ICONiC’ can also solve production downtime issues.

According to the semiconductor industry, the global focus ring material market is estimated to be about 1.2 trillion KRW. ICONiC is poised to enter the focus ring material market using the new material ‘ICONiC,’ raising expectations for new revenue generation in the future.

Lee Moon-ki, CEO of ICONiC, said, “‘ICONiC’ is more than four times superior in performance compared to existing quartz and also has price competitiveness. We have started product testing by first supplying ‘ICONiC’ samples to multiple clients.”

He added, “As the third quarter is the traditional peak season for the semiconductor industry, an increase in orders for semiconductor precision processing and cleaning products is expected, so we anticipate continued strong performance this year.”