Industrial Dehumidifier in the Application of the Semiconductor Industry

1. Introduction
With the advancement of technology and improvement in product technology and further opening up of China, a large number of foreign-funded enterprises set up its manufacturing base in China, especially in the semiconductor industry in recent years, its new production technology and production process have high requirements for the temperature, humidity, cleanliness. So they need a more effective and relatively low energy consumption air conditioning system, particularly a low humidity environment.
Currently, there are four ways of air dehumidification, ventilation, cooling, liquid absorption and solid adsorbent desiccant. In the air dehumidification system, cooling and solid adsorbent desiccant is the primary means. Cooling dehumidification is useful and has stable performance and lower energy consumption in the environment which do not has high requirement for humidity (RH ≯ 60 ~ 65%), currently used widely. However, in a production environment which require a lower humidity (RH＜45 ± 5%), the use of cooling dehumidification is obviously not economical. However, a desiccant dehumidifier will not be affected by low dew point; also they have a large dehumidification capacity. But for its large regeneration energy consumption, only use a solid desiccant dehumidifier is not the most economical. Cooling dehumidifier and desiccant dehumidifier both have their own strengths, complementary and will have better performance.

2. Humidity requirements in the semiconductor industry
Semiconductor factory have strict requirements for air-conditioning system parameters, such as temperature, humidity, air cleanliness, air pressure balance and so on. It also has strict requirements for accuracy of the humidity, due to the electronic products is sensitive to static electricity and their quality will be affected by high-humidity environment. As the air-conditioning system configuration, it requires a system with the function of summer dehumidification and winter humidification.

Generally, the temperature and humidity conditions of semiconductor factory are: T = 22 ± 2℃, RH = 45 ± 5%. For the requirements, many semiconductor plants use air-conditioning systems with both cooling and desiccant dehumidifier to achieve the indoor air temperature and humidity requirements, and made significant gains.

Date：2011-3-15