Press release

Edwards Responds to United Nations’ New Greenhouse Gas Guidelines

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United
Nations’ body for assessing the science related to climate change, has
just released the
latest refinement
to its 2006 Guidelines. As part of an effort to
tackle climate change, the refined regulations tighten control on new
greenhouse gases used in semiconductor manufacturing and increase
requirements for reporting and accountability for manufacturers.

“The IPCC has recognised that there is a gap between the amount of
greenhouse gas measured in the atmosphere and the amount calculated from
the inventory of known sources of emission,” said Prof. Mike Czerniak,
Visiting Industrial Professor, Bristol University, and Environmental
Solutions Business Development Manager, Edwards. “The gap is of
particular concern for gases such as perfluoro compounds (PFCs), which
not only have extraordinarily high global warming potentials (GWP) but
also extremely long lifetimes in the atmosphere, as long as 50,000
years.”

Two new mechanisms for PFC formation during semiconductor manufacturing
have been identified and emission factors have been added to the latest
IPCC refinement:

1) CF4 formation when cleaning chemical vapor deposition
(CVD) chamber deposits.

2) CF4 formation by reaction of fluorine with hydrocarbon
fuel in combustion-based abatement in systems that mix the fuel and
process chamber effluent.

“For the first time ever, there is a new emission factor for
combustion-based abatement of fluorine – direct accountability is now
required, in the form of a data-backed certification from the equipment
manufacturer that the reaction is minimised,” said Prof. Czerniak. “PFC
formation can be minimised by appropriate combustor design.”

Edwards’ inward-fired combustor avoids the mixing of chamber exhaust and
fuel that, in other designs, can lead to the production of PFCs where
they did not exist in the original exhaust stream. The lower, more
uniform temperature profile of the inward-fired combustor ensures a high
destruction removal efficiency (DRE), with low NOx generation.
Inward-fired combustors have been standard on Edwards’ abatement systems
since the company started developing them in the 1990s.

Visit Edwards (booth #750) during SEMICON
West
to learn more about the latest IPCC guidelines and best
practices for reducing greenhouse gases. SEMICON West takes place July
9-11, 2019, in San Francisco, Calif. Further information about Edwards
can be found at www.edwardsvacuum.com.

About Edwards
Edwards is celebrating its 100-year birthday
in 2019. The founder, FD Edwards, began by providing vacuum equipment
from a small office in South London; 100 years later Edwards has over
6,000 employees worldwide engaged in the design, manufacture and support
of high technology vacuum and exhaust management equipment.

Edwards’ innovations are integral to manufacturing processes for
semiconductors, flat panel displays, LEDs and solar cells. They are also
used within an increasingly diverse range of industrial processes
including power, glass and other coating applications; steel and other
metallurgy; pharmaceutical and chemical; and for scientific instruments
in a wide range of R&D applications. Edwards has state-of-the-art
manufacturing facilities in Europe, Asia and North America.

About the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The
IPCC is the scientific organization supporting the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Organized by the United
Nations and the World Meteorological Organization, the IPCC’s reports
provide the scientific underpinnings for the international climate
negotiations that led to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris
Agreement on climate change. The IPCC reviews the state of the science
of climate change every 5-7 years. For more information, visit https://www.ipcc.ch.