High-Purity Aluminum Enhances, Enables and Protects Vital Infrastructure
AlumiPlate® electroplated aluminum provides superior corrosion protection with less contamination, reduced scrap, lower maintenance costs and extended service life.
High-purity aluminum is dense, free of voids and defects, and can be used as a coating for components subjected to high temperatures. It can be uniformly deposited to any thickness, serving as an ideal protective coating for semiconductor fabrication equipment, gas distribution plates and solar manufacturing components.
Precision and Purity
Semiconductor fabrication processes demand precision, especially as current-generation integrated circuits shrink to 5-7 nanometers in size, with next-generation targets aiming for 2.5 nanometers. Material selection and coatings play a critical role in maximizing semiconductor yields and extending the service life of vital components.
Independent testing has confirmed that aluminum plating leads to longer life of critical semiconductor etching and deposition process components, facilitating the migration to reduced integrated circuit sizes.
High-purity aluminum acts as a protective barrier against corrosion and oxidation, two issues that can wreak havoc in the semiconductor process environment. The aluminum plating maintains a clean process environment, and lowers risks of contamination and defects occurring during silicon wafer production.
As semiconductor equipment evolves, the demand for even purer aluminum and alumina coatings will grow. AlumiPlate’s high-purity aluminum coatings offer superior performance, while promoting optimal yields, and minimal defects in integrated circuit manufacturing. Electroplated aluminum stands ready to safeguard both current and next-generation platforms.
Benefits of Electroplated High-Purity Aluminum
Exceptional Purity
Our coating is typically greater than 99.99% pure, ensuring optimal performance and compatibility with various processes.
Corrosion Resistance
Pure electroplated aluminum is compatible with fluorine and chlorine plasmas. It effectively protects and extends the lifespan of materials such as aluminum alloys, copper alloys, ferrous alloys, high temperature alloys such as stainless steels and nickel alloys.
Diffusion Barrier
The thin and dense aluminum coating acts as a diffusion barrier. The plating prevents migration of substrate elements and inter-diffusion of materials, thereby mitigating contamination in the chamber processing environment.
Plasma Recombination
Due to its high thermal conductivity, pure electroplated aluminum can be strategically deposited on stainless steels. The coating helps dissipate excess heat generated during plasma recombination processes.
Uniform Deposition
The coating can be uniformly deposited to any desired thickness, ensuring consistent protection across critical surfaces that meet the requirements of various applications
High-Performance Alumina
The aluminum coating enables the formation of high-performance aluminum oxide. Purer oxides result in longer life for critical semiconductor etching and deposition process components, facilitating the migration to reduced integrated circuit feature sizes.
Anodization of Any Material
High-purity aluminum coating allows anodizing on virtually any material, including silicon. It combines the best properties of non-anodizable substrates with the surface properties of pure alumina.
High Temperature Capabilities
High purity aluminum helps dissipate heat and prevents corrosion from plasmas. Electroplated aluminum withstands long term exposure temperatures of up to 300 °C, and intermittent exposure of 400 °C.
Insulation Properties of AlumiPlate® High-Purity Electroplated Aluminum
For applications requiring electrical insulation, aluminum electroplating can be converted into aluminum oxide through anodic oxidation (anodization) or plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO), also known as micro-arc oxidation (MAO). Alumina from electroplated aluminum exhibits superior structure with less voids and impurities than alumina from less pure aluminum alloys.
Anodized electroplated aluminum coating offers protection at unprecedented levels with very high corrosion resistance and dielectric strength. Breakdown voltages measure in excess of 2,000 volts per 0.001 inch of aluminum oxide coating layer thickness.
Find out more about the characterization of anodized high-purity aluminum by reading our technical report.
Upcoming Developments
AlumiPlate is developing a high temperature inter-metallic coating using high-purity aluminum. High-purity aluminum can be diffused into high-temperature ferrous alloys to form an aluminide coating that is resistant to corrosion, exhibits high wear capability and withstands temperatures up to 1100 °C.
Please contact us for more information on this exciting development.