Kalrez® News 1 - Article 7

DuPont Dow Elastomers To Showcase New Kalrez® Wet And Dry Process Seals At SEMICON 2001

DuPont Dow Elastomers will showcase new Kalrez® Sahara™ Plasma 8575 and Kalrez® 6375UP perfluoroelastomer parts at Semicon Europa 2001, to further extend its acknowledged leadership in long-life seals for both dry and wet semiconductor processes, the company states. These new Kalrez® UltraPure™ compounds have been developed to keep pace with the industry's toughening demands for lasting seal integrity in aggressive dry plasma, dry gas, dry thermal and wet process environments.

Kalrez® Sahara™ Plasma 8575, the newest addition to the family of Kalrez® Sahara™ compounds, delivers the highest elastomeric seal performance in dry plasma CVD and thermal systems. The perfluoroelastomer resists O2 and fluorine plasma as well as chlorinated sealing gases, with reduced weight loss, low particle generation and outgassing, and improved elastic recovery properties. It offers excellent long-term sealing performance in continuous service temperatures as high as 280°C. The new product complements Kalrez® Sahara™ 8475 for diffusion furnace, LPCVD, RTP and lamp anneal processes, 8375 for severe dry plasma environments and 8385 for dynamic dry process sealing.

New Kalrez® 6375UP enhances DuPont Dow's "wet range" of Kalrez® perfluoroelastomer compounds by resisting all wet process chemicals, amines, acids and bases. It displays good mechanical strength and compression set recovery at continuous service temperatures up to 275°C. This family of Kalrez® products for semiconductor fabricators includes long-established Kalrez® 4079 for both wet and dry process environments reaching 316°C, and Kalrez® 8201, specially formulated for wet processes demanding low elemental, metallic, anionic and total organic carbon (TOC) extractables.

DuPont Dow is also expected to report on the findings of a customer service survey confirming "best-ever on-time delivery performance" since opening its European centralised warehouse near Brussels Airport last year. The new facility is the result of a shared-site distribution agreement with DHL aimed at speeding delivery of Kalrez® perfluoroelastomer parts and Zalak® high performance seals to customers throughout Europe.

Improved supply-chain performance was the key reason why DuPont Dow Elastomers won the "2000 Supplier Excellence Award" presented recently by Tokyo Electron Europe Limited (TEL). During the award ceremony, Mr. Gerry Thurgood, president and managing director of TEL Europe, commended the company on achieving an excellent 93.5 percent on-time delivery performance.

Kalrez® UltraPure™ perfluoroelastomer parts are produced only by DuPont Dow Elastomers and are specially cleaned and double packaged in Class 100 Workstations to significantly reduce contamination. Each item is individually packaged in a bar-coded bag for full traceability and is available as O-rings, sheets, slabs, and custom parts.

About DuPont Dow Elastomers

DuPont Dow Elastomers, a global supplier of specialty elastomers with European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, is a joint venture between the DuPont Company and The Dow Chemical Company, with more than US $1 billion in sales. The company is the industry leader in chloroelastomers, ethylene elastomers and fluorinated elastomers, serving the automotive, chemical, semiconductor, food and pharmaceutical processing, construction, general rubber and wire and cable industries.

Editors note: DuPont Dow Elastomers is always to be cited by its full name in the first reference. For all references thereafter, the company may be cited as DuPont Dow.

Kalrez® and Zalak® are registered trademarks of DuPont

Kalrez® Sahara™ and Kalrez® UltraPure™ are trademarks of DuPont

Next Article: Article 6: DuPont Dow Elastomers Features New Kalrez® UltraPure™ Perfluoroelastomer Parts At SEMICON West