AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF SEMICONDUCTOR PROCESS CHILLER USING INDIVIDUAL AND DUAL COMPRESSOR METHOD

Excessive heat occurs during the semiconductor manufacturing process. Thus, precise control of temperature is required to maintain constant chamber temperature and also wafer temperature in the chamber. Compared to an industrial chiller, a semiconductor chiller's power consumption is very high due to its continuous operation for a year. Considering the high power consumption, it is necessary to develop an energy efficient chiller by optimizing operation control. Therefore, in this study, a semiconductor chiller is experimentally investigated to suggest an energy-saving direction by conducting load change, controlling the temperature's rise and fall and controlled precision experiments. The experimental study shows how the cooling capacity of new model chiller rises over 30% compared to the old model chiller. The time and power consumption in the temperature rising experiments are 43 min and 8.4 kWh, respectively. The control precision is the same as ± 1°C, at 0°C, in any case. However, it appears that the new model channel's control precision improves to ± 0.5°C when the setting temperature is over 30°C.