Brooks Instrument Blog

Later this week we’ll be hanging out with our local sales agent in Puerto Rico, MR Franceschini (MRF) at the Interphex Puerto Rico trade show. Each year Brooks partner’s up with MRF to exhibit. Boy does this trade show do it right. It’s on Thursday and Friday and starts each day at 1pm and ends at 8pm. The show has a party atmosphere and everyone that comes truly seems to have a good time. It’s the best way to mix business with pleasure. I had the pleasure of attending this trade show myself years ago, but our regional sales manager for this territory, Rich Fravel, will be in attendance this year, as he is every year … lucky guy! Read more…

We’re proud to announce that Brooks is the recipient of another award this year. The 2011 Innovation Award from Flow Control magazine joins our Golden Gas Award and Control Readers’ Choice Awards from earlier this year. Read more…

Brooks has unveiled the next era of its GF Series mass flow controllers. Our GF120 mass flow controllers now come with a Safe Delivery System (SDS®).

The GF120 SDS is a low-pressure drop mass flow controller that delivers sub-atmospheric SCS gases used in implant and etch processes. They are available in full-scale flow ranges of 4 to 25 sccm (GF120XSL) or >25 sccm to 1 slpm (GF120XSD). Read more…

At Pittcon this week in Atlanta, Gases and Instrumentation International presented Brooks with a 2011 Golden Gas Award. We took home top honors in the “Mass Flow Measurement/Press Measurement and Control” category for our GF Series Thermal Mass Flow Controllers.

GF125 Thermal Mass Flow Controller

The GF Series is a highly modular, user programmable, ultra high purity mass flow controller designed for advanced semiconductor and thin-film processes. Through proactive monitoring of the worlds largest install base of MultiFlo™ and pressure transient insensitive mass flow controllers, the GF Series combines exceptional flow repeatability, market-leading 300ms flow control response time, the most comprehensive gas and flow range programmability, and long-term reliability in a highly configurable platform.

“The GF Series is a single platform, process-wide solution for the challenging and diverse needs of the modern semiconductor manufacturing facility,” said Shaun Pewsey, director of field marketing at Brooks Instrument. “We are honored to be recognized by Gases and Instrumentation International’s Golden Gas Awards for this innovation to the semiconductor industry.”

Brooks previously won a Golden Gas Award in 2008 for our 4800 Series mass flow products. For more information on the GF Series, click here.

Brooks and Polycontrols Technologies have been working together to support NASA research that will send a new exploratory module to Venus. Polycontrols is integrating Brooks’ SLA series mass flow controllers with a gas mixing system and chamber that NASA will use for materials testing at the John Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

Sending a new exploration module to Venus’ surface will require NASA to ensure the module and its electronic components can withstand the planet’s harsh environment. The gas mixing system and chamber will simulate high thermal stress and Venus’ corrosive atmosphere to test materials needed to make the new module.

Polycontrols’ team selected Brooks’ SLA series mass flow controllers because it proved that it could accurately produce proper gas concentrations to the parts per million (PPM) precision that NASA needs to achieve in the test chamber.

View the full case study here.

It has been a long time coming, but yesterday marked the official opening of our new cleanroom manufacturing facility! Outside vendors involved with the build joined us for a ribbon cutting ceremony this morning outside the cleanroom. Local representatives also attended to recognize Brooks for the economic contributions we’ve made to the community through almost 100 new manufacturing jobs in 2010.

Brooks CEO Clark Hale had this to say at the ceremony:

“This is the largest investment Brooks Instrument has ever made in its manufacturing facilities worldwide. It signifies us taking major strides into the electronics industry and our commitment to the future growth of Brooks.”

The Class 100 cleanroom will serve primarily as the production area for Brooks’ GF Series ultra high-purity mass flow controllers.

To learn more about the cleanroom, watch an interview that Ian Kaye, production manager at Brooks, gave to the Reporter Online.

Check out some photos from the ceremony below:

For the October issue of Pumps & Systems, Brooks Marketing Manager Wes Sund contributed an article titled, “Mass-Based Propane Odorant Injection System.” In the article, Wes describes the traditional method for propane odorization, as well as advances that provide the following benefits: higher accuracy to minimize odorant consumption; no moving parts for reliable operation and minimal maintenance; and documentation of actual odorant dosing rates. The advances are made through mass flow controllers with Coriolis sensor technology.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:
A liquid mass flow controller based on Coriolis technology was selected as a technology that would provide these desired benefits. The operating concept of a mass flow controller-based odorization system is very simple. The odorant injection control system takes a reading from the propane delivery meter and calculates the flow setpoint required to meet the odorant mass/propane volume ratio specification. The flow controller is sized to meet a wide variation in propane delivery rates experienced from summer to winter.

Read the full article here.

Listen to Jan Christensen talk about how fuel cell manufacturers use test stands to simulate the performance of fuel cells. These test stands consist of systems for mixing, delivering and humidifying gases, and these all depend on reliable flow measurement and control. In modern test stations, mass flow controllers are the preferred choice for controlling gases.

The first attempts to replace the horse as the primary mode of transportation involved burning wood to create steam to drive a steam engine. If the new crop of biotechnology and renewable energy companies realize their dreams we will once again be fueling our transportation and even using chemicals created from wood cellulose and other plants. Genetic engineering which has been the catalyst in the revolution of drug and food development is now being used to tackle our need for renewable fuels. I had experience, while still a student in the late 1970s, on the potential of enzymes to breakdown cellulose into sugar the basic building block for chemicals. I even had dreams of creating a cellulose driven economy but with oil costing only $20/bbl, I soon realized it would be difficult to compete. The catalyst driving the current group of bio energy hopefuls is the need to find renewable fuels which are better for the environment. Three conversion technologies are actively being funded. Read more…

In my last post I talked about UL Listed versus Recognized.  This time we are going to take a look at the IP and NEMA ratings and what they mean.  With this information you should be able to decide what minimum level of protection you need for your application.

Let’s start with the basics.  What does IP and NEMA stand for?  IP stands for ingress protection and NEMA stands for National Electrical Manufacturers Association.  Both IP and NEMA are rating systems for equipment that might be exposed to liquids, rain, ice, corrosion and contaminates such as dust.

An IP number contains two numbers (i.e. IP65) in most instances which relate to the level of protection provided by an enclosure or housing.  The first number relates to protection from solids as follows: Read more…