International Test Solutions (ITS) is a supplier of probe card cleaning materials for the testing of integrated circuits during the fabrication process on silicon wafers. The accurate validation of these circuits is critical to the manufacturing process and has an enormous impact on the cost of production. International Test Solutions products can increase the accuracy of testing and speed the production process through the use of patented cleaning polymers that remove debris from the electrical test probes. These probes are made of very fine filament wire and will collect debris from the wafer fabrication process over time which alters the test signal received from the circuit, however regular cleaning through touch-downs on the ITS cleaning pad ensures an accurate test connection.

Several years ago, International Test Solutions began supplying these novel polymer products using a single sheet batch coating process that requires intensive manual labor. As the use of the product became more widespread in the integrated circuit manufacturing market the volume demands grew tremendously steering ITS towards a continuous process. However the production of these materials has very specific requirements related to the multilayer construction, zero tolerance for defects, and very accurate thickness control. In order to meet these demands and keep up with volume requirements, ITS asked Chemsultants International Network for assistance in developing a novel roll coating production process that is appropriate for the application.

Chemsultants was able to draw on extensive coating experience and internal machine engineering knowledge to develop a narrow roll coating process that handles multi-later polymer products in a clean room environment. The machine and process also allow the flexibility to change over on short production runs and for various set-ups for rapid development of new product constructions. This new process and process environment helped ITS meet the demanding requirements associated with materials used in the electronics industry which far exceeds the typical tape and label applications.