e-skin® corrugated tube for cleanrooms

Including semiconductor manufacturing
The e-skin® energy chain is predominately used in the manufacture of semiconductors. These applications are exceptionally sensitive to dust so require special cleanroom manufacturing conditions.
igus® developed a modular corrugated tube and a flat cable guidance
system to ensure energy supply could be provided to work in such
specialised environments.

Customer requirements: The company Mingseal manufactures products for the 3C industry (computer, communication and consumer electronics). The main product is an adhesive dispenser for camera modules. The igus E3 and E6 energy chain systems, which are already suitable for ISO class 1 according to IPA, were previously used as energy supply systems. Nowadays, however, the market demands an even higher particle-free standard (and thus theoretically an even better ISO class) than before, especially for mobile phone camera modules. The reason for this is the ever-increasing number of pixels on mobile phone cameras, because if there is just one particle on these modules, the entire module is abandoned and the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and the yield (YIELD) of the system drop enormously.

Our solutions: In the first step, the customer had to replace the energy chain with other products, e.g. welded cleanroom ribbon cables. The disadvantages of this solution soon became apparent: on the one hand, it was not possible to open the welded ribbon cables to add or replace cables, and on the other hand, the cables broke very quickly because they had to support themselves. After only half a year, the first defects appeared on these welded cables, which in turn led to the system coming to a standstill. The igus cleanroom energy supply system e-skin convinced the engineers at Mingseal. The unique openable corrugated tube for cleanrooms, which consists of an upper and lower shell, combined the engineers' openability, inherent rigidity, and compactness requirements with the highest cleanroom suitability according to ISO Class 1. The compact e-skin series SKS20 will be installed in new machines in the future.