Professional Plastics and its Singapore subsidiary have extended their fire retardant plastic material offerings for application in the semiconductor industry.
The company has invested in a number of materials such as Halar ECTFE, Symalit and Solef PVDF, Kynar and certain grades of CPVC rods and sheets to meet the FM-4910 fire retardant standard. The FM-4910 protocol, formed by Factory Mutual System, is given for materials used in clean room applications. The company is a distribution partner for many FM-4910 approved producers. Some of them include Takiron, Boltaron, Simona, Rochling, Quadrant and Vycom.
The production process needed to develop smaller and faster computer chips becomes more difficult and production delay can lead to loss of millions of dollars in revenue. Contamination is one of the significant reasons for delay in the chip production process and even a slight fire contamination could affect the production of a chipmaker.
Earlier, sprinklers or costly fire-protection systems were required to protect wet benches and clean rooms. However, the clean room gets damaged by fire before the fire protection system or sprinkler could be triggered. Hence, chip makers wanted suppliers to utilize less flammable materials to ensure the safety of clean rooms.
The Cleanroom Materials Flammability Test Protocol (Class 4910) includes the technique to conduct tests for selecting materials for clean room applications. This protocol will enable wet-bench manufacturers and consumers to create plastic materials and tools with unique capabilities, including less production of corrosive by-products, emission of smoke and fire resistance.