The Beneq P400A and P800 are ALD systems designed for industrial-scale production. They are ideal tools for scaling-up thin film deposition from R&D phase to full-size industrial production. The systems are dependable, industrially proven and mature in terms of technical distinction. The design is based on 25 years of continuous (24/7) operation in demanding industrial applications.
Most of our industrial customers require dedicated equipment and process setups. Beneq has several in-house P400A and P800 systems to cater for a wide range of coating needs in application development and thin film R&D. This way, customers looking for production equipment can verify the technical and financial performance of the process and equipment, before making an investment. In addition, we offer the possibility of low-volume production until our customer’s own fabrication has been set up.
BENEQ P400A
Scaled to large batches and thick film stacks
Opposite to general belief, many ALD processes use thick film stacks (> 1 μm). Thick batch processes necessitate optimized handling of precursor source materials and advanced process waste management. The P400A and P800 come equipped with a multiphase filtering system, which is capable of handling large amounts of precursors. During process runs, precursor de-activation functions guarantee that the system allows no chemicals that could cause film growth, to pass through to the vacuum pump. The vacuum filter is of large-volume type with high gas conductance. The large waste handling capacity of the system enables typical cleaning intervals of approximately 1 year in R&D mode and 3 to 6 months in production. For process and coating run design, the user-friendly recipe editor for nanolaminates, mixed films and complex coating design structures is capable of handling hundreds of different layers in the same run.
BENEQ P800
Performance Highlights
Immediate scale up to production after R&D phase.
Extensive logging for repeatable production control.
UPS supported functions.
Low need for maintenance.
Unique mini-environment design for flexibility in loading, batch and substrate size as well as contamination control.
Mini-environment and proprietary filtering design separate cleaning work from the P400A system base. No downtime due to cleaning.
Cost-efficient hot-wall and high-capacity batch system.
Unique thermally stable source block with patented rapid embedded dosing valves and integrated flow channels.
Vacuum pumping system with multiphase, proprietary high-capacity precursor de-activation and filtration system to enable high-volume batch processing.
Over-heating prevented by additional PLC with dedicated thermocouples, apart from normal heating loop, for increased production safety.
Industry-proven high repeatability and reliability in production, based on 30 years of development.
The challenge when coating 3D optics is to deposit the coating with high uniformity over an arbitrary topology in a simple manner. The common techniques used for optical coatings, including magnetron sputtering, evaporation, electron beam evaporation (EBE) and ion beam sputtering (IBS), all so called line-of-sight methods.
A common method of protection is to deposit protective films or coatings onto metal surfaces. A variety of protective coatings, such as nitrides or metal oxides, with high corrosion resistance, wear resistance, and good mechanical strength, have been widely studied and tested.
Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) is an unmatchable moisture barrier and encapsulation solution for electronics and semiconductor components. The ultra-thin ALD moisture protection can be applied in different phases of the production process: wafer-level, chip-level, package or module-level, and/or Assembled Printed Circuit Board (PCBA) level.
ALD offers the only way to create conformal ultra-thin protective coatings on surfaces with high aspect ratios and complex 3D shapes. ALD is also a great solution for encapsulating sensitive surfaces. Here are 3 of Beneq’s ALD moisture barrier customer cases from the electronics industry.
We did a little research and looked at the list of all customer projects from our Coating Services unit and checked what industrial ALD applications our customers have run on Beneq equipment. These were the 3 most popular industrial ALD applications.
There is a solution for protecting all types of silver components, objects, and products; nSilver Anti-Tarnish coating. Our nSILVER anti-tarnish coating creates a protective barrier against oxidization, which prolongs the shelf-life of silver products and saves in polishing costs.
Optical lenses and prisms are used to redirect the light waves, they’re also used to allow a specific light wave to pass through, or to reflect specific wavelengths.
Today we’re talking to Dr Mikko Söderlund, Head of Industrial Solutions at Beneq, to find out more about flexible electronics and how they benefit from ALD coating.
Ever since we earlier this year announced the licensing of rotary spatial ALD technology and launched Beneq R11, our new rotary tool for plasma enhanced spatial ALD, we have received a steady flow of inquiries and questions about where we see the new equipment being the most useful.
According to recent industry news, smartphone market leaders, such as Apple, Samsung and LG, are planning to adopt ALD-based thin film encapsulation solutions for flexible AMOLED displays. Details of the plans have not been confirmed, but this is nevertheless exiting news for the whole ALD community.
Electronic components and devices do not tolerate hot and humid conditions. Most people know this and avoid exposing electronics to vapors and liquids.
Our complete thin film service concept, Thin as a Service, which we launched last year, has been received well. The customers seem to appreciate the possibility to get a quick proof of concept of new ALD applications with ALD-123 as well as the shorter time to production enabled by our Coating Services.
Earlier we shared examples of industrial use of ALD in moisture barriers. Now we continue with another typical area of ALD applications: Optical coatings.
The best-known Finnish object in the Star Wars sequel, however, probably still is the Planetoid Valleys necklace Princess Leia wore in the original movie released in 1977. Most people know that the father of the necklace is Björn Weckström, but we can now reveal that the protective powers of this beautiful piece of jewelry are produced using Beneq equipment as the secret weapon.
A typical WVTR value of our nCLEAR ALD barrier coatings is 4×10-6 g/m2 per day. That is a million times less moisture through the surface than with the best parylene alternative.
The world is getting thinner. The never-ending quest to miniaturize and digitalize everything while saving our limited resources requires innovative technologies that allow creating ultra-thin reflecting layers, strengthening coatings, nanolaminates and protective barriers in spaces where just a few years ago nobody imagined it would be possible to operate.
