• Semi E-78 Compliance

• Mission - “To minimize the impact on capital productivity due to the presence of static charge in semiconductor manufacturing environments.”
• Objective - To create a matrix of acceptable levels of static charge at the input and exit ports of production equipment for the purposes of:
• Eliminating equipment lock-up problems due to ESD events that produce EMI.
• Reducing the attraction of particles to charged surfaces.
• Reducing product and reticle damage due to ESD.

E78 Compliance Procedures

• Perform a compliance test to determine the equipment E78 level as designed
• If equipment doesn't meet required level, troubleshoot to locate the source of excess charge
• Engineer the static control solution into the equipment
• Retest the equipment for compliance
• A comprehensive program is required to deal with static charge in semiconductor manufacturing.
• Once proper materials have been chosen and everything has been grounded, ionizers are required.
• SEMI has issued E78-0998 recognizing the impact of static charge on the operation of production equipment.
• The cost of static control is a small fraction of the cost of product losses and equipment downtime due to static charge.
The SEMI E78 tool static charge compliance will include:
• Measuring electric field on all critical surfaces before and after processing.
• Determine equipment malfunction threshold .
• Verification of charge levels on devices and carriers before and after processing in equipment.
• Initiate ESD diagnosis and profiling audit.

SEMI E78-0998 guide recommended sensitivity levels

Roadmap for static charge limits