Tergeo series advanced tabletop plasma cleaners and etchers are tailored for research, development, and low-volume manufacturing. Tergeo plasma cleaners excel in surface cleaning, activation, organic contamination removal, bonding enhancement and photoresist ashing. Their precision and versatility make them ideal for applications in nanotechnology, materials science, microfabrication, and failure analysis. With a maintenance-free design and low cost of ownership, Tergeo systems offer exceptional long-term value.
Support wide range of process gases: Tergeo plasma systems are compatible with a broad spectrum of process gases, including oxygen, argon, nitrogen, hydrogen, CF₄, SF₆, ambient air, water vapor, and custom gas mixtures. The system can handle up to three different gases simultaneously, making it ideal for various applications such as photoresist ashing, descum, surface cleaning and activation, and pre-bonding treatment.
Fully automatic system design: Designed for ease and consistency, Tergeo systems feature MFC-regulated gas flow control and recipe-based operation. The entire process—from vacuum pumping, gas delivery, and pressure stabilization to plasma ignition, impedance matching, timed processing, and post-cleaning purging—is fully automated. This ensures highly repeatable and reliable results without manual intervention.
Dual plasma sources in one system: Tergeo series plasma system integrated two plasma sources in one system. The direct mode plasma source provides the high speed etching and ashing. The remote downstream mode plasma source offers gentle surface treatment and cleaning for fragile and ESD sensitive samples.
Plasma intensity sensor: An integrated plasma intensity sensor delivers real-time, quantitative feedback displayed on the touchscreen interface. This simplifies process optimization and enhances consistency—no plasma expertise required. For oxygen plasma ashing, the sensor can also serve as an end-point detection tool when processing organic materials like photoresists.
Continuous and pulsed plasma: Tergeo systems offer fine RF power control in 1-watt increments and support both continuous and pulsed plasma modes. The pulse ratio is adjustable from 100% down to less than 1%, extending the dynamic plasma intensity range by two orders of magnitude. This allows for both aggressive processing—like photoresist removal at >1 µm/min—and ultra-gentle treatment of fragile 2D materials such as graphene.
Water vapor plasma: Tergeo systems can generate water vapor plasma to produce a high density of OH* (hydroxyl) functional groups, crucial for making surfaces hydrophilic. The use of H₂O and O₂ plasma also provides a safer alternative to reactive hydrogen-oxygen mixtures, particularly for treating radiation-hardened polymers. Additionally, this configuration enables plasma sterilization to effectively eliminate viruses and bacteria.
- Cleaning before wire bonding, die-attach, flip-chip bonding process.
- SEM/TEM sample cleaning for hydrocarbon contamination removal
- Surface treat before biomedical coating and improve the hydrophilicity of medical implants
- Optics, glass, and substrate cleaning before epoxy bonding
- Photoresist ashing, descum, and silicon wafer cleaning
- PDMS, microfluidics, glass slides, and lab-on-a-chip
- Improve epoxy bonding for metal to metal or composite
- Improve bonding for plastic, polymer, and composite materials
- Medical device activation, sterilization and improve coating adhesion
The technology in Tergeo series plasma system originated from the Plasma & Ion source Technology group in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Tergeo series plasma systems have been well received by the academic communities worldwide. Please search “Tergeo plasma” on Google Scholar and check it out! Here is the direct link to the partial list of publications. We expect our user base in academic communities will continue to grow fast because we brought the latest plasma technology to the academic communities and built versatile, reliable plasma systems with repeatable performance at an affordable price
- Better plasma uniformity with external electrode design.
- Unique plasma sensor technology for quantitative plasma intensity measurement.
- Direct/immersion mode and remote/downstream plasma processing mode in one system.
- Continuous and pulsed plasma can change the cleaning speed by 3-4 orders of magnitude.
- High frequency 13.56MHz rf power supply with automatic impedance matching. MHz plasma system is many times more efficient than KHz plasma system at the same rf power rating.
- Advanced process control technology.
- Mass flow controller (MFC) regulated gas input instead of manual rotameter or coarse needle valve.
- Advanced digital pressure sensor for accurate pressure monitoring.
- Fully automatic operation with 20 recipe support.
- Intuitive resistive touchscreen user interface.
- External RF electrode and quartz chamber can eliminate the metal contamination issue on plasma systems with internal metal electrodes.
Fully automatic recipe-based operation provides repeatable and reliable performance. Intuitive user interface enables new users to operate the system without any extensive training. Smart system design aided by multiple sensors ( plasma intensity sensor, pressure sensor, flow sensors, and etc) enabled fully automatic operations.
