As semiconductor devices continue to shrink, contamination control has become more critical than ever. Particles that were once considered insignificant can now impact device performance, process stability, and manufacturing yield. Detecting contamination before it reaches the wafer is increasingly essential for maintaining quality and reducing costly production disruptions.
In this interview, Benton Hutchinson from Particle Measuring Systems discusses why 20 nm particle monitoring is becoming the new benchmark for advanced semiconductor manufacturing, the technical challenges of measuring particles at this scale, and how earlier, more reliable contamination data is helping fabs and chemical suppliers strengthen process control and improve yield.
To start, how would you describe the role Particle Measuring Systems plays in contamination control for advanced semiconductor manufacturing?
Particle Measuring Systems plays a critical role in helping semiconductor manufacturers identify, understand, and control particulate contamination in ultra-high-purity manufacturing environments.
In advanced semiconductor production, even extremely small particles can create defects that impact device performance and yield. PMS provides monitoring solutions that help customers detect contamination in the key areas where it matters most: fab environments, process tools, ultra-pure water (UPW) systems, and high-purity process chemicals.
For liquid applications specifically, PMS helps customers monitor contamination in materials that come into direct contact with wafer surfaces, including UPW and high-purity chemicals.
Because these fluids are used throughout critical cleaning, etching, rinsing, and processing steps, the ability to detect particles down to 20 nm provides customers with an important layer of process control before contamination can reach the wafer and become a yield-impacting defect.
Where is particle contamination the most critical?
Particles in the fab are always a problem. At PMS, we monitor anywhere that contamination is critical, from the air inside process tools to the incoming materials.
Particle contamination is most critical wherever materials come into direct contact with the wafer surface, particularly in UPW and high-purity chemical delivery systems.
While airborne contamination remains important, the highest risk often comes from process liquids, which are intentionally applied to the wafer during critical manufacturing steps. A contaminant introduced through a rinse, cleaning, etch, or chemical process can directly impact device structures and create yield-limiting defects.
For this reason, semiconductor manufacturers place significant emphasis on contamination control throughout the liquid delivery chain, from chemical suppliers verifying batch quality, to filtration systems removing particles, to continuous monitoring near the point of use.
Ultimately, the most critical contamination-control locations are those where a particle has the shortest path to the wafer surface and the greatest potential to impact yield. Thus, our ability to monitor UPW and chemicals down to 20 nm is vital.
Why has 20 nm particle detection become such an important threshold for semiconductor fabs and chemical suppliers?
As semiconductor devices continue to scale to smaller technology nodes, the size of particles capable of causing defects also continues to decrease. A particle that may have been less concerning at an older node can become highly problematic as device geometries shrink and process margins become tighter.
At these advanced nodes, particles in the 20 nm range can be large relative to the structures being manufactured and can interfere with electrical pathways, patterning, or surface integrity.
For fabs, 20 nm monitoring provides a more sensitive view of contamination risk in the process fluids that ultimately contact the wafer. For chemical suppliers, it provides a way to verify that high-purity chemicals meet the cleanliness expectations of semiconductor customers before those materials are delivered or introduced into the fab.
In both cases, the move toward 20 nm monitoring reflects the industry’s need to detect contamination earlier, at smaller sizes, and closer to the point where it could impact yield.
What types of contamination events are most concerning at the 20 nm scale, particularly in high-purity chemicals and ultrapure water systems?
At the 20 nm scale, particles can originate from failures or degradation in liquid-handling systems, including pumps, filters, resin beds, and other components used to transport, purify, and deliver UPW or high-purity chemicals.
When these systems begin to degrade or fail, they can release particles into the process stream that may not be visible at larger monitoring thresholds but can still be significant for advanced semiconductor manufacturing.
Another important concern is incoming chemical quality. While many large fabs perform additional filtration once chemicals arrive on site, suppliers are increasingly expected to verify the cleanliness of their chemicals before shipment.
Monitoring at 20 nm helps both suppliers and fabs understand whether a batch, delivery, or process stream is within expected cleanliness limits before it reaches a critical process step.
At these extremely small particle sizes, what are the biggest technical challenges in generating stable, repeatable, and actionable particle-counting data?
The biggest challenge is that particle detection at these sizes approaches the practical limits of optical particle-counting physics.
As particle size decreases, the amount of scattered light generated by each particle drops dramatically. In the Rayleigh scattering regime, signal strength decreases rapidly with particle diameter, making the signal-to-noise ratio increasingly difficult to manage as detection thresholds are lowered.
At 20 nm, the instrument must distinguish extremely small particle signals from background noise while still producing stable, repeatable, and actionable data. Achieving that requires careful optical design, strong control of noise sources, consistent sample handling, and robust data interpretation.
The measurement is not simply about detecting a small particle; it is about producing data that customers can trust and use for process decisions in a high-consequence manufacturing environment.
How does earlier detection of smaller contamination changes help semiconductor manufacturers reduce yield loss and downtime?
Earlier detection allows manufacturers to identify contamination before it reaches the wafer surface and becomes a defect. If contamination is only discovered later through post-process wafer inspection or surface metrology, it may already be too late: the affected wafers may have been processed, the contamination source may be harder to isolate, and the fab may need to spend significant time investigating where the excursion originated.
By monitoring UPW and high-purity chemicals before they contact the wafer, customers can detect changes in contamination levels earlier and respond more quickly. This may include stopping use of a contaminated chemical stream, isolating a filter or pump issue, holding a suspect batch, or preventing material from being sent forward into production.
In practical terms, earlier detection helps shift contamination control from reactive failure analysis to proactive process protection.
Where are customers seeing the most value from 20 nm monitoring today: chemical supply qualification, fab incoming inspection, point-of-use monitoring, filtration verification, or another application?
Customers are seeing strong value in point-of-use monitoring and filtration verification. Point-of-use monitoring is especially important because it allows fabs to monitor contamination near where chemicals or UPW are used in the process. This location provides a more direct view of the material quality being delivered to critical process steps and can help identify excursion events caused by system-level issues such as pump, filter, or delivery-system failures.
Filtration verification is closely related. Customers use 20 nm monitoring to confirm that filtration systems are performing as expected and to identify changes in cleanliness that may indicate degradation, breakthrough, or a process upset. Chemical supplier qualification is also valuable, particularly for suppliers that need to demonstrate that their chemicals meet customer cleanliness requirements before shipment.
However, the greatest immediate process-control value is often realized when monitoring is placed near the point of use, where the data can help prevent contamination from reaching the wafer.
The semiconductor market is under constant pressure to improve yield while scaling to more advanced nodes. How is that changing customer expectations for contamination monitoring systems?
Customers increasingly expect contamination monitoring systems to deliver three things: greater sensitivity, higher reliability, and more trustworthy data. As device geometries shrink, fabs want to detect smaller particles and understand contamination trends at lower thresholds. That is creating demand for continued advancement beyond today’s monitoring capabilities, including interest in even smaller particle-size detection.
At the same time, sensitivity alone is not enough. Customers also expect instruments to operate reliably in demanding 24/7 fab environments with minimal downtime and strong data consistency. Monitoring systems are becoming part of the process-control infrastructure, so fabs need confidence that the data is stable, repeatable, and meaningful.
In other words, the expectation is shifting from simply “can the instrument detect smaller particles?” to “can the system continuously provide reliable data that supports real process decisions?”
How do you help customers interpret 20 nm particle data in a practical way, so it becomes a process-control tool rather than just another measurement stream?
The key is helping customers move beyond simply watching particle counts rise and fall. PMS helps customers via a larger network of applications engineers who interpret particle data in the context of their process, their baseline, and their specific contamination-control objectives.
This requires examining trends, statistical behavior, baseline stability, excursion patterns, and correlations between particle counts and process events or system changes.
In practice, this can include statistical analysis, evaluation of normal process variation, particle-size distribution review, and investigation of cyclical or recurring patterns in the data. The goal is to help customers distinguish between normal background variation and meaningful process changes that require action.
When interpreted properly, 20 nm data becomes a tool for understanding process health, verifying filtration performance, identifying developing contamination sources, and supporting better decisions in real time.
For fabs or suppliers that are still monitoring at larger particle-size thresholds, what usually triggers the decision to move toward 20 nm monitoring?
The decision is often triggered by a contamination event that was not adequately detected at a larger particle-size threshold. A fab or supplier may experience a yield issue, a chemical quality excursion, or a process upset and later determine that the existing monitoring approach did not provide enough sensitivity to identify the problem early. In such cases, moving to 20 nm monitoring becomes a way to close the detection gap.
Another common driver is the need to better understand system recovery after an excursion. A larger-particle instrument may show that a system has returned to baseline relatively quickly, while a 20 nm monitor may reveal that smaller-particle contamination persists for much longer.
This additional visibility can help customers make better decisions about when a chemical stream, filtration system, or process line is truly ready to return to use.
Looking ahead, what developments do you expect in contamination monitoring as semiconductor processes continue to become more sensitive to nanoscale defects?
The industry will continue to push toward smaller particle-size detection, higher sensitivity, and more monitoring at critical points in the process. As semiconductor processes become more sensitive to nanoscale defects, customers will want better visibility into the materials and environments that directly interact with the wafer, especially UPW, high-purity chemicals, and point-of-use delivery systems.
We also expect contamination monitoring to become more integrated into process-control strategies. Rather than being used only for qualification or troubleshooting, particle data will increasingly be used to support real-time decisions, verify system health, and prevent excursions before they impact production.
The future of contamination monitoring will likely be defined not only by smaller detection limits, but also by more reliable continuous operation, better data interpretation, and placement of monitoring closer to the critical locations where wafers are exposed.
Ultimately, contamination control is becoming less about reacting to defects after they occur and more about preventing them at the source as semiconductor manufacturing continues to advance. Monitoring at 20 nm provides fabs and suppliers with a more sensitive and actionable view of process-fluid cleanliness, helping them identify small changes before they become yield-impacting events.
For advanced semiconductor manufacturing, that earlier visibility can be the difference between a controlled process and an expensive investigation.
Where can readers find more information?
Find more information at our website, https://www.pmeasuring.com/, and read about 20 nm products here: https://www.pmeasuring.com/products/liquid-particle-counters/.
Technical papers here: https://www.pmeasuring.com/resources-search-results/?category_name=application_note
Webinars here: https://www.pmeasuring.com/resources-search-results/?category_name=webinar
About Benton Hutchinson, Electronics Market Segment Manager
Email: [email protected]
Benton Hutchinson is the Electronics Market Segment Manager at Particle Measuring Systems, where he leads strategy and commercialization efforts for advanced contamination monitoring solutions used in semiconductor manufacturing.
He works closely with semiconductor fabs, chemical suppliers, and industry partners to develop technologies that help customers detect, understand, and control contamination in ultrapure water, high-purity chemicals, bulk gases, and other critical process environments.
Before moving into his current role, Benton was a Product Line Manager and Applications Engineer focusing on the AMC and aerosol products globally. He holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Chemical Engineering.
About PMS
Particle Measuring Systems (PMS®)
Leading the Way in Contamination Monitoring & Cleanroom Solutions Worldwide
Particle Measuring Systems partners with clean manufacturers around the world to help meet regulatory requirements, improve product yield, and maintain process integrity.
With a local presence in every major market, we deliver contamination monitoring solutions for particles and molecules across air, gas, chemicals, and deionized water, along with active air microbial samplers. As the inventor of laser particle counting, our legacy of innovation is backed by over 60 active patents, making us a trusted leader in cleanroom and process monitoring technologies.
This information has been sourced, reviewed, and adapted from materials provided by Particle Measuring Systems.
For more information on this source, please visit Particle Measuring Systems.
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