Analysis towards energy savings in dry storage systems of semiconductor devices

Abstract

The semiconductor industry is a fast-changing industry, and many new electronic devices are being developed every year. As components get smaller and thinner, moisture-related problems increase since moisture can penetrate to critical areas much easier. Many manufactures have been investing money and human resources to come up with ideas to save their industry. One of the best methods to prevent moisture ingress is to store the semiconductor device in a dry storage enclosure such as a Dry Box. The humidity inside the Dry Box is kept low by either suppling it with Nitrogen or Compressed Dry Air. A company based in Malta was used as a case study to investigate the use of a Dry Box which is supplied with Compressed Dry Air using the dual bed drying technology. A new desiccant-based technology was also investigated for this case study and an assessment was conducted to investigate the electrical energy consumption for both technologies. A design of experiment had to be formulated to quantify the electrical energy consumption of one storage system by setting up the required measuring equipment. Apart from electrical energy consumption, the relative humidity and air temperature inside the Dry Box were measured in order to assess the behaviour of both technologies against time. An analysis of the conditions of the Dry Box was conducted in order to better understand the sources of any existing losses and to identify whether scope for improvement, if any, existed. In fact, in one of the experiments, it was highlighted that by improving the door seal and the construction joints therefore reducing the infiltration rate, and reducing the internal volume of the Dry Box, the compressed dry air was reduced by nearly 26.4%, resulting in a reduction of €308.3 per year per Dry Box. This means that even if the supply side (Drying Technology) is not changed, improvements can be made on the demand side (i.e. the Dry Box itself) to ensure a more sustainable process and therefore reduce the carbon footprint of the company.