Jestem Achieves World's First 1% Humidity Uniformity... "World's Best Technical Performance Achieved"

Development of Wafer Cassette FOUP with 1% Humidity Uniformity
Continuous Product Launches Following Success of JFS U5 Development
"New Momentum in Semiconductor Contamination Control Systems"

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyungsoo Park] Jeostem, a semiconductor humidity control solution specialist company, has developed a new product, JFS U1 (Under 1%).

Jeostem, which was listed on the KOSDAQ market last October, is a company specializing in semiconductor yield improvement solutions. It developed a nitrogen (N₂) module that can increase yield through contamination control in fine processes below 20 nanometers. By applying a nitrogen (N₂) module specialized for 45% wafer humidity, it is a product that can maintain humidity at about 5% and prevent device yield degradation caused by contamination contained in moisture.

Recently, due to the airflow inside the EFEM (Equipment Front End Module), which is the wafer transfer space, the wafer humidity at the central lower part of the FOUP (Front Open Unified Pod), a wafer storage container, is at a level of 15~20%, requiring improvement.

Jeostem developed the JFS U5 (Under 5%) product and, after performance evaluation at a global company's Taiwan fab, received an evaluation of about 3.5% humidity at all 25 wafer positions. Reliability evaluation is currently underway, and additional evaluations are being conducted on equipment at fabs in Japan and Singapore.

In the market, extreme humidity improvement is increasingly required due to the miniaturization of semiconductor devices. In particular, the need for humidity improvement is growing in equipment installed in existing lines where the introduction of new nitrogen (N₂) EFEM is not possible.

Jeostem's JFS U1 is mounted on existing EFEMs and controls humidity at about 1% for all 25 wafer slots. The company implemented world-class technological performance by applying know-how acquired from the mass production evaluation of JFS U5, Jeostem's patented Laminar Flow technology, and new patented technologies. Additionally, the JFS U1 product has been verified by external organizations.

The JFS U5, currently under mass production evaluation, is scheduled to be applied to mass production equipment starting next year, and the JFS U1 will enter mass production line evaluation from early next year and is expected to be applied to critical processes requiring 1% humidity control from the end of next year. In particular, the JFS U5 product was developed as a small and medium-sized enterprise innovation project, and the responsible researcher received the ‘Korea Engineer Award’ last November.

A Jeostem official stated, "Amid the frozen investment sentiment due to the semiconductor industry's overall reduction in expansion investment and production cuts, Jeostem's JFS U1 product is expected to become a new momentum for semiconductor contamination control systems that can minimize humidity inside FOUP and improve yield."