DANBURY, Conn., July 12, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ATMI, Inc. (Nasdaq:ATMI) today formally announced that one of its new semiconductor manufacturing products has been acknowledged by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as receiving its 'Design for the Environment' designated label (DfE Label). The product, iCleaner, designed for a semiconductor fabrication cleaning process, is the first chemistry in the Semiconductor industry to receive this accolade. According to the EPA's DfE Website, the designation indicates that a DfE team has screened all product ingredients for possible environmental and health effects. The site further states that "manufacturers who become DfE partners...have invested heavily in research, development, and reformulation to ensure that their ingredients and finished product line up on the green end of the health and environmental spectrum while maintaining or improving product performance." The EPA iCleaner listing can be found at: http://www.epa.gov/dfe/pubs/projects/formulat/formpart.htm#7
As an innovator in product engineering and a leading provider of materials and materials packaging to the semiconductor industry, ATMI incorporates two core principles to help guide its approach to product design: 'The 12 Principles of Green Engineering' and 'The 12 Principles of Green Chemistry.'
For this product, ATMI partnered with a customer to deliver an enabling cleaning solution used in the semiconductor fabrication process. With the aid of ATMI's High Productivity Development tools and the '12 Principles' approaches, the team developed a novel, low odor, and environmentally benign formulation that delivers a time- and cost-effective in-line cleaning method. Baseline cleanliness has been an area of concern for the integrated circuit (IC) production community, and as dimensions of the most advanced ICs continue to shrink, it is now critical to clean not only the wafer surface, but also other surfaces in the wafer processing environment. In addition to the safety and environmental aspects, the product's improved cleaning performance compared favorably to the previous method with both increased tool throughput and no added defects.
"Our High Productivity Development capabilities continue to enable breakthrough solutions quickly for our partners and customers," noted Tod Higinbotham, ATMI's Executive Vice President and General Manager of Microelectronics. "We're pleased to be able to collaborate in this way to meet our customer's goals efficiently. Meeting the EPA requirements for the DfE designation is certainly another first and positive step forward in chemistry and materials development."
About ATMI
ATMI, Inc. provides specialty semiconductor materials, and safe, high-purity materials handling and delivery solutions designed to increase process efficiencies for the worldwide semiconductor, flat panel, and life sciences industries. For more information, please visit http://www.atmi.com.
The ATMI, Inc. logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=5254
ATMI and the ATMI logo are trademarks, or registered trademarks, of Advanced Technology Materials, Inc., in the United States, other countries or both.
Statements contained herein that relate to ATMI's future performance, including, without limitation, statements with respect to ATMI's anticipated results of operations or level of business for 2011 or any other future period, are forward-looking statements within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are based on current expectations only and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, including, but not limited to, changes in semiconductor industry growth (including, without limitation, wafer starts) or ATMI's markets; competition, problems, or delays developing, commercializing and delivering new products; customer-driven pricing pressure; potential loss of key customers; problems or delays in integrating acquired operations and businesses; uncertainty in the credit and financial markets; ability to protect ATMI's proprietary technology; and other factors described in ATMI's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010, and other subsequent filings, including the March 31, 2011 Form 10-Q, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements. ATMI undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.