Zyron is a registered trademark for specialty gases marketed to the global

electronics industry The electronics industry is the economic sector that produces electronic devices. It emerged in the 20th century and is today one of the largest global industries. Contemporary society uses a vast array of electronic devices built-in automated or ...

DuPont DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...

History

Freon Freon ( ) is a registered trademark of the Chemours Company and generic descriptor for a number of halocarbon products. They are stable, nonflammable, low toxicity gases or liquids which have generally been used as refrigerants and as aerosol prop ...

was used as the original brand name for electronic gases produced and marketed by DuPont. With the depletion of the

ozone layer The ozone layer or ozone shield is a region of Earth's stratosphere that absorbs most of the Sun's ultraviolet radiation. It contains a high concentration of ozone (O3) in relation to other parts of the atmosphere, although still small in rela ...

and the subsequent phase-out of

chlorofluorocarbon Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are fully or partly halogenated hydrocarbons that contain carbon (C), hydrogen (H), chlorine (Cl), and fluorine (F), produced as volatile derivatives of methane, ethane, and prop ...

(CFC) gas compounds, the company rebranded this product line to differentiate from

refrigerant A refrigerant is a working fluid used in the heat pump and refrigeration cycle, refrigeration cycle of air conditioning systems and heat pumps where in most cases they undergo a repeated phase transition from a liquid to a gas and back again. Ref ...

gases that had been using the same Freon brand name. The name was developed in October 1991 by DuPont employees

Paul Bechly Paul Lorin Bechly (born 1958) is an American chemical engineer known for his work in the development of an environmentally-oriented perfluorocarbon gas policy for DuPont and other industries. He currently works in the financial industry. Educat ...

and Dr. Nicholas Nazarenko, was first used in commerce on June 12, 1992, and became a registered trademark of DuPont in 1993.USPTO Trademark Registration # 1772141
/ref>

Naming System

The Zyron product naming system was also developed by Bechly and Nazarenko in October 1991. The system is based upon the historical industry numbering system for fluorinated alkanes
/ref> to identify the chemical compound, followed by an (N) suffix component that specified product purity. The naming system was intentionally not trademarked to allow for industrial adoption. As example for Zyron 116 N5: the 116 represents the compound hexafluoroethane, and N5 represents "5 nines" or 99.999% purity. As example for Zyron 23 N3 the 23 represents the compound

trifluoromethane Trifluoromethane or fluoroform is the chemical compound with the formula CHF3. It is one of the " haloforms", a class of compounds with the formula CHX3 (X = halogen) with C3v symmetry. Fluoroform is used in diverse applications in organic syn ...

, and N3 represents "3 nine" or 99.99% purity.

Products

Zyron 116 N5 ( hexafluoroethane) Zyron 318 N4 (

octafluorocyclobutane Octafluorocyclobutane, or perfluorocyclobutane, C4F8, is an organofluorine compound which enjoys several niche applications. Octafluorocyclobutane is a colourless gas and shipped as a liquefied gas. It is the perfluorinated analogue of cyclobutan ...

) Zyron 23 N5 (

) Zyron 23 N3 (

) Historical products included: Zyron 14 (

tetrafluoromethane Tetrafluoromethane, also known as carbon tetrafluoride or R-14, is the simplest perfluorocarbon ( C F4). As its IUPAC name indicates, tetrafluoromethane is the perfluorinated counterpart to the hydrocarbon methane. It can also be classified as a h ...

), Zyron 32 (

difluoromethane Difluoromethane, also called difluoromethylene, HFC-32 Methylene Fluoride or R-32, is an organic compound of the dihalogenoalkane variety. It has the formula of CH2F2. It is a colorless gas in the ambient atmosphere and is slightly soluble in th ...

), Zyron 125 (

pentafluoroethane Pentafluoroethane is a fluorocarbon with the formula CF3CHF2. Pentafluoroethane is currently used as a refrigerant (known as R-125) and also used as a fire suppression agent in fire suppression systems. Pentafluoroethane does not deplete ozone so ...

), and Zyron NF3 (

nitrogen trifluoride Nitrogen trifluoride () is an inorganic, colorless, non-flammable, toxic gas with a slightly musty odor. It finds increasing use within the manufacturing of flat-panel displays, photovoltaics, LEDs and other microelectronics. Nitrogen trifluori ...

Applications

The primary applications of these gases for the

are for etching of

silicon wafer In electronics, a wafer (also called a slice or substrate) is a thin slice of semiconductor, such as a crystalline silicon (c-Si), used for the fabrication of integrated circuits and, in photovoltaics, to manufacture solar cells. The wafer serv ...

, and cleaning of

chemical vapor deposition Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a vacuum deposition method used to produce high quality, and high-performance, solid materials. The process is often used in the semiconductor industry to produce thin films. In typical CVD, the wafer (substra ...

chamber tools.DuPont Zyron Electronic Gases for Plasma Process Applications
/ref> These are all plasma-based product applications where the product is essentially destroyed in use. Alternative products to the Zyron line for various application in electronics include the chemical compounds HCl, BCl₃, CF₄, ClF₃, CH₂F₂, Ge_H4, C₄F₆, NF₃, C₅F₈, PH₃, C₃H₆, SiH₄, and WF₆.Air Products listing of specialty gases for the Semiconductor Industry
/ref>

In the news

Zyron NF3 announcement (2002)

Zyron team award announcement (2007)

Semicon Taiwan announcement (2010)

References

{{Reflist

External links

DuPont Zyron website

Semiconductor Industry Association

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Paul L Bechly papers (Accession 2723), Hagley Museum and Library
Brand name materials Organofluorides Semiconductor device fabrication