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Cambridge Nanotech Solves ALD Valve Problem: A Case Study By John Baxter July/August 2010
A better choice of valves enabled them to improve performance, significantly reduce maintenance time and reduce COO
When Cambridge NanoTech Inc. first started manufacturing atomic layer deposition (ALD) systems in 2003, the company was experiencing frustrating clogs in the systems’ valves, which were also underperforming when exposed to heat. The result was lots of downtime.
“The first valves we were using needed to be replaced once a month,” explains Dr. Jill Becker, founder of Cambridge NanoTech. “That meant operators had to cool the system down, go in there with wrenches, take everything apart, and replace the valves with ones that were sure to cause downtime again in the future. When you think about manufacturing efficiency, you just can’t have this sort of maintenance headache.”
