Plasma Etch has introduced the PE-100 plasma etching system designed primarily for Universities, small R&D laboratories and pilot production facilities.

The company reports that the PE-100 provides a modestly sized vacuum chamber that accommodates up to 240” of capacity per run cycle and uses an RF power supply, vacuum pumping, a PLC based process vacuum controller and touch screen programming in the claimed “turn-key” package. The company also reports that any process developed on the PE-100 can be scaled up to larger Plasma Etch systems as required by substrate size and throughput demands.

The company reports that all Plasma Etch systems operate using an RF induced ionized plasma process that removes contaminants such as organics, coatings and metal oxides as well as providing a hydrophilic surface for adhesion of parts processed, and that application for the system include medical devices, solar cells, optics, printed circuit boards, connectors, MEMs, wafer level packaging and other related semiconductor processes.