IPA Vapor Dryer

Marangoni drying uses IPA vapor to create a surface-tension gradient that pulls water off the wafer as it leaves the rinse, leaving no watermarks. Spin drying instead spins the wafer to mechanically remove water. Because Marangoni drying has no moving parts in the chamber, it avoids the wafer breakage and particle generation that spinning can cause, and it dries more gently across the full wafer surface.

Watermarks form when DI water evaporates from the wafer, leaving dissolved residue behind. An IPA vapor dryer removes water before it can evaporate, sheeting it off due to the surface-tension gradient created by the IPA vapor. With no standing water left to dry in place, no watermark residue forms.

IPA consumption is very low because vapor is generated from a standard one-gallon bottle, and only a small amount of vapor is needed to create the drying gradient. Vapor is introduced through the top cover for even distribution, efficiently using IPA while still achieving full surface-tension drying across all wafers and substrates.

Yes. The drying technology can be integrated into a wet bench, eliminating the need for one wafer transfer step between rinsing and drying. Integrating the dryer shortens handling time, reduces the risk of contamination or breakage during transfer, and keeps rinsing and drying in a single controlled environment.

The MVD Series handles process sizes from standard wafer carriers, holding one or two carriers, through to glass substrates. Because the chamber is configured to the application rather than a fixed cassette size, the same platform can dry production wafers or larger substrates, depending on how it is built for the facility.

Modutek Corporation designs, builds, and tests every IPA vapor dryer in-house at its San Jose, California facility, sizing each MVD Series unit to your wafers or substrates and, where needed, designing it directly into your wet bench.