FSI International, Inc. (FSI) is an American manufacturing company based in

Chaska, Minnesota Chaska is a city and the county seat of Carver County, Minnesota, United States. An outer ring suburb of the Twin Cities, Chaska is home to the Hazeltine National Golf Club and is known for its historic downtown area located on a bend of the ...

that supplies processing equipment used to manufacture microelectronics, including

semiconductor devices A semiconductor device is an electronic component that relies on the electronic properties of a semiconductor material (primarily silicon, germanium, and gallium arsenide, as well as organic semiconductors) for its function. Its conductivity l ...

History

The company's history began with the establishment of Fluoroware, Inc. in 1966, a company that made fixtures to hold the silicon wafers in place during the various processes involved in producing semiconductor devices. When asked to design a drying apparatus, the principals of Fluoroware agreed to do so and established FSI International in 1973 to market this new product. The company's offerings expanded to meet the market need for equipment used in the fabrication of

microelectronics Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre-s ...

. In the 1990s, the company relocated from its original facility overlooking Hazeltine Lake to a larger site nearby. In 1999, FSI International announced an agreement to acquire YieldUP International Corp. In October 2012,

Tokyo Electron , or TEL, is a Japanese electronics and semiconductor company headquartered in Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan. The company was founded as Tokyo Electron Laboratories, Inc. in 1963. TEL is best known as a supplier of equipment to fabricate ...

acquired FSI International, Inc. and renamed the division TEL FSI.

Products

FSI International supplied surface conditioning technology solutions, using wet, cryogenic and other chemistry techniques to clean, strip or etch the surfaces of silicon wafers. The company also engaged in

microlithography Microlithography is a general name for any manufacturing process that can create a minutely patterned thin film of protective materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, in order to protect selected areas of it during subsequent etchin ...

systems for photoresist, light-sensitive, and etch-resistant films. The company provides upgrade, replacement and other support services. The five main series of equipment produced by the company are: ZETA, MERCURY, ORION, ANTARES, and POLARIS, and in earlier years, the company also produced the SATURN and NEPTUNE processing systems. Some of the products of the company are spray cleaning systems, single wafer cleaning systems, cryogenic processing systems, and immersion cleaning systems.

References

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External links

Official FSI International website
Semiconductor companies of the United States Manufacturing companies based in Minnesota Chaska, Minnesota Electronics companies established in 1973 1973 establishments in Minnesota Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq