Electronic Wet Chemicals – The Indispensable Materials
Electronic wet chemicals are one of the most indispensable materials for the production process of display panels, semiconductors, solar cells, etc. Its chemical property not only directly attributes to the quality of the final electronic products but also significantly impacts microelectronics manufacturing and industrialization.
What are electronic wet chemicals?
Electronic wet chemicals, also known as ultra-clean and high-purity reagents, with the major component’s purity greater than 99.99%. It is generally required to control the particle size of impurity particles to be less than 0.5 μm and the content of metal impurities to be less than the ppm level. Electronic wet chemicals are reagents with the highest requirements regarding particle control and impurity content among chemical reagents.
Electronic wet chemicals are a subbranch of electronic chemicals, and various liquid chemical materials are used in the manufacturing process of microelectronics and optoelectronics. According to their compositions and applications, electronic wet chemicals can be further divided into general wet electronic chemicals and functional wet electronic chemicals. General electronic wet chemicals are single-component and single-function liquid electronic chemicals that are widely used, such as acids, alkalis, organic solvents, etc. Functional electronic wet chemicals refer to chemicals that achieve special functions and meet process requirements in manufacturing through compounding methods, such as stripping liquid, developer, etching liquid, cleaning liquid, etc.
Specific classifications of electronic wet chemicals
| Category | Subcategory | Product Name | |
| General Electronic Wet Chemicals | Acids | Hydrofluoric acid, nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, acetic acid, etc. | |
| Alkalis | Ammonia, sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, etc. | ||
| Organic solvents | Alcohols | Methanol, ethanol, isopropanol, etc. | |
| Ketones | Acetone, butanone, methyl isobutyl ketone, etc. | ||
| Esters | Ethyl acetate, butyl acetate, isoamyl acetate, etc. | ||
| Hydrocarbons | Toluene, xylene, cyclohexane, etc. | ||
| Halogenated hydrocarbons | Trichloroethylene, trichloroethane, methyl chloride, carbon tetrachloride, etc. | ||
| Others | Hydrogen peroxide, etc. | ||
| Functional Electronic Wet Chemicals | Etchants | Metal etchant, buffered oxide etchant, ITO etchant, silicon etchant, etc. | |
| Cleaning liquids | Cleaning solution after copper polishing, cleaning solution after etching of aluminum process, cleaning solution after etching of copper process, cleaning solution after removing HKMG false gate, cleaning solution for removing flash. | ||
| Photoresist supporting reagents | Diluents | Propylene glycol methyl ether acetate, propylene glycol methyl ether, ethyl lactate. | |
| Developers | Positive film developer, negative film developer, etc. | ||
| Stripping Solutions | Positive film stripping solution, negative film stripping solution, stripping cleaning solution, acidic stripping solution, etc. | ||
Applications of Electronic Wet Chemicals
There are three major application areas of electronic wet chemicals, i.e., the panel display manufacturing process, the semiconductor manufacturing process, and the solar panel manufacturing process. Specific application links and related technical requirements for electronic wet chemicals in different fields are compared as follows:
| Technical requirements for electronic wet chemicals | Panel display manufacturing process | Mainly used in thin film process cleaning, photolithography, development, etching and other links. | Highest technical requirements |
| Semiconductor manufacturing process | Mainly used in the front-end wafer manufacturing of integrated circuits and the back-end packaging and testing links. | High technical requirements | |
| Solar panel manufacturing process | Mainly used for cleaning alkali production, diffusion to P-N junction, cleaning, etching and other links. | Relatively low technical requirements |
