A technician in a cleanroom coverall, hood and mask standing in a filtered cleanroom bay.

Home / Services / Cleaning & refurbishment

Service line

Restore the part you already qualified.

Chamber hardware rarely fails outright. It drifts — residue builds, surfaces load, particle counts climb, and yield follows. Cleaning and refurbishment returns a known part to a known condition, with measurement data attached, usually faster and for less than a new one costs.

Cleaning

Eleven methods, matched to the contamination.

There is no universal clean. Plasma residue, wet-process films, particulate and organics each want a different attack, and the wrong one damages the part. The method is selected per part and recorded on the job.

Cleaning and surface preparation methods
Method Typically used for
CO₂ cleaningDry, non-abrasive particulate and light organic removal.
Ultrasonic cleaningBulk contaminant removal, four frequencies for different soil and geometry.
Ultrasonic resurfacingRecovering a working surface without machining the part.
IPA vapour cleaningResidue-free final clean on sensitive surfaces.
Wet & dry bead blastingHeavier deposit removal and controlled surface texture.
High-pressure hot water rinsePost-process rinse and carry-over removal.
Chemical treatmentTargeted chemistry for films that mechanical methods will not lift.
Solvent bath cleaningOrganics, oils and machining residues.
Disassembly & assemblyAccess to internal surfaces, then rebuild to specification.
High-UV ready cleaningOutgassing-critical parts, to ASTM E-595-15.
PassivationStainless steel corrosion resistance, to ASTM A380.
Ultrasonic 40 kHz

Coarser cavitation for heavier deposits on robust parts.

Ultrasonic 60 kHz

General-purpose frequency for most chamber hardware.

Ultrasonic 80 kHz

Finer action for detailed geometry and tighter features.

Ultrasonic 120 kHz

Gentlest step, for delicate surfaces and micro parts.

Environment

Cleaned in Class 1000. Inspected and packed in Class 100.

A part cleaned properly and then handled in open air is not a clean part. Final cleaning runs in a Class 1000 environment; final inspection and packaging step up to Class 100, so what leaves the building is in the condition the measurement record says it is.

Verification before shipment uses liquid particle count, ICP-MS, automated optical inspection and non-contact profilometry, depending on what the part has to prove.

Inspection & documentation

Class 1000
Final cleaning and repair operations.
Class 100
Final inspection and packaging.
Liquid particle count
Particle performance verification after clean.
ICP-MS
Trace metallic contamination analysis.

Component repair

What cannot simply be swapped.

Some hardware is too expensive, too long-lead or too qualified to replace. We rebuild it — strip, clean, replace wear elements, reassemble and test.

Electrostatic chucks

Clean, repair and rebuild of ESC assemblies, one of the highest-value items in the chamber.

Valves & vacuum pumps

Precision valve cleaning, vacuum pump repair, and pump and valve refurbishment as a standing programme.

Bellows & seals

Bellows, magnetic seals and seal assemblies restored to working condition and leak-checked.

Heaters

Heater assembly repair and rebuild, returned with performance verification.

Micro parts

Small and detailed hardware — ceramic nozzles and similar — where the cleaning window is narrow and the part is easy to ruin.

Sockets & test hardware

Chipset socket cleaning and regeneration for test and packaging operations.

Harvesting. Where a tool is being decommissioned, we recover the parts worth keeping, refurbish them and return them to your spares pool rather than letting a chamber's worth of qualified hardware go to scrap.

How a refurb job runs

Five stages, documented at each one.

  1. Receive and assess

    Incoming inspection against the part's history: what it is, what it ran, what condition it arrived in.

  2. Select the method

    Cleaning route chosen against the contamination and the base material, and recorded on the job traveller.

  3. Disassemble, clean, repair

    Strip to the level required, clean or resurface, replace wear elements, rebuild to specification.

  4. Verify

    Liquid particle count, ICP-MS, optical and dimensional inspection as the part requires.

  5. Pack in Class 100

    Final inspection and cleanroom packaging, shipped with the documentation package.

Next step

Send a part in, or ask what it would take.

Tell us the part, the tool and the process it ran — that is enough for us to scope the work.