semiconductor folks!

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@riley @Hemera consider that helium is also sometimes used as carrier or purge gas (in quantities I'd very much like to know about)

[be_far@social.treehouse.systems]

@whitequark the one number I’ve ever seen (couldn’t ever find a source, everyone just repeats it) is that one advanced TSMC fab uses 500,000 cubic meters of helium a year. If it’s used as a purge gas like you mentioned in another comment I imagine it’s very low reclamation but I don’t know if that number takes reclamation into account (even if it’s not made up).

[riley@toot.cat]

@whitequark Oh. Yeah. That could be a use.

@Hemera

[sobex@social.sciences.re]

@whitequark @riley @Hemera Purge gas is the explanation I had seen, and I had heard also that EUV machines needed it (though apparently, people in this thread are suggesting hydrogen is used ?)

I think it would make sense to have a non-reactive gas atmosphere, though.

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@be_far yeah it's infuriating how often someone just pulls a figure out of who knows where and then everyone else repeats it

[be_far@social.treehouse.systems]

@whitequark it has to be AI generated at this point, you’d think there would be some interview somewhere saying it but I’ve never found one. TSMC’s own periodic sustainability reports are in dollars, maybe you could convert using price data?

[gwenthefops@transfem.social]

@whitequark@social.treehouse.systems @riley@toot.cat @Hemera@meow.social I think some lasers also use helium, either to get the right frequency or temperature. Might be required to etch the gates at the required size?

[shironeko@fedi.tesaguri.club]

@whitequark I think helium makes the bubbles smaller giving the chips a more premium mouthfeel.

[xeno@hexokina.se]

@whitequark@social.treehouse.systems it’s used for loads of things, as a carrier gas, for cooling, and the main way to find leaks in an ultra high vacuum system (of which fabs have loads) is by spraying helium around the outside and looking for helium that makes it inside

there’s probably plenty of other uses I’m just ignorant of

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@xeno do you work in the industry?

[azonenberg@ioc.exchange]

@xeno @whitequark yeah but leak detection can't be a high volume use compared to actual production work. Like how often do tools develop leaks if you're not actively working on them?

[xeno@hexokina.se]

@whitequark@social.treehouse.systems oh nope sorry I didn’t parse “semiconductor folks” as people in the industry

I have been doing smal-scale semiconductor research work and I’ve learned from some actual semiconductor people but I am def not one of them

[azonenberg@ioc.exchange]

@xeno @whitequark i would expect most leaks to be after maintenance outages then the tool runs leak free for a comparatively long time

[xeno@hexokina.se]

@whitequark@social.treehouse.systems oh nope sorry I didn’t parse “semiconductor folks” as people in the industry

I have been doing small-scale semiconductor research work and I’ve learned from some actual semiconductor people but I am def not one of them

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@xeno oh no research definitely counts

do you know how much helium is used as a carrier gas? cooling in ESC/BSG systems seems to be "few sccm" which is not a geopolitically relevant amount, neither is leak checking

[xeno@hexokina.se]

@whitequark@social.treehouse.systems @azonenberg@ioc.exchange that’s true,

I know people in other labs with UHV stuff who have had to install He recycling systems and stuff over the past couple years to deal with the shortage but they might have some niche use for lots of He they never told me about, I was just thinking of “things that use He”

[psistarpsiii@tacobelllabs.net]

@whitequark I think it may be used in some plasma etch processes. Dry etching is basically sorcery

[xeno@hexokina.se]

@whitequark@social.treehouse.systems I think it varies a lot, I can look up our uni’s rie system that uses He bsg

the other thing with bsg systems is some of them don’t necessarily need He, it’s just optimal given thermal conductivity and inertness. Most bsg systems I know about can also use Ar or N2, but the thermal conductivity probably precludes their use in intense ion milling and stuff.