ACM Research Introduces Wafer Cleaning Tool

ACM Research (NASDAQ:ACMR), a provider of wafer cleaning equipment used by manufacturers of advanced semiconductors announced the launch of Ultra-C Tahoe with the company already receiving first order.

Further, the expects it to deliver by end of 2018 and recognize revenue for the product in 2019 upon customer acceptance.

As quoted in the press release:

Today’s conventional high-temperature single-wafer cleaners provide good cleaning performance at advanced nodes, but consume significant amounts of sulphuric acid and hydrogen peroxide.  During normal cleaning processes, only a fraction of the acid reacts with the wafer surface, while the majority is wasted as acid spins off the wafer and cannot be recycled.  The excessive acid usage causes unnecessary cost, greater safety requirements, and more waste treatment for modern fab operations.

ACM’s Ultra-C Tahoe incorporates innovative and patented technology to deliver high cleaning performance, but uses 20% or less of the sulphuric acid typically consumed by conventional high temperature single wafer cleaning tools.  This offers compelling environmental and economic benefits.  ACM estimates the Ultra-C Tahoe platform can save tens of millions of dollars a year for a typical 100,000 wafer-per-month DRAM fab.  This new product is another example of ACM’s focus on differentiated and patent-protected product offerings, intended to expand its market opportunity and drive profitable longer-term revenue growth.

ACM’s President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. David Wang commented, “The Ultra-C Tahoe is an exciting extension of our industry-leading single-wafer wet cleaning product family.  Beyond the cost savings resulting from vastly reduced acid consumption, Ultra-C Tahoe meets the needs of modern, environmentally-aware manufacturing.  In major semiconductor manufacturing regions around the world, such as the Yangtze River in China to the Ichon region in Korea, our customers face increased regulations, and demand new environmentally-friendly tools such as our Ultra-C Tahoe.”

Dr. Wang continued, “Our current megasonic cleaning platforms, SAPS and TEBO, address an estimated 30 percent of the approximately $2.7 billion total annual market for semiconductor cleaning equipment.  We believe the Ultra-C Tahoe product line expands our addressable market by another 25 percent, bringing our total addressable market opportunity to more than 55 percent of the $2.7 billion total.  We are experiencing high interest for the Ultra-C Tahoe from all of our existing, and several new potential customers.”

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