Podcast: Helium usage in semiconductor fabs

The latest 1895 podcast was a live one, recorded on stage at the recent gasworld Specialty Gases Summit in Utrecht.

In this episode, Rich Brook, who leads a global consulting business specialising in helium, highlighted the challenges surrounding sourcing and recycling the precious molecule, and the dynamics that apply in operational semiconductor fabs.

“Inside a wafer fab, it’s complicated. You have gases from a number of different suppliers, so who’s going to do the recycling? Who’s liable if things go wrong? So this is why you see so many smokestacks on top of wafer fabs: most people want to ‘neutralise’ them. If you have $15bn investment, you want to do wafers – you don’t want to take on added risk [from taking on extra tasks like gas recycling necessarily]. A 1% yield loss is still a fortune.”

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