en.Wedoany.com Reported - Element Group has initiated infrastructure preparations for Russia's first industrial-grade vacuum coating aluminum metallization equipment, with the project involving the construction of a dedicated cleanroom and comprehensive engineering systems meeting microelectronics production requirements.
The cleanroom design work is undertaken by System Solutions company under a contract worth 21 million rubles. The company won the tender held by the Institute of Molecular Electronics (NIIME). The testing center will be built in Zelenograd, covering an area of approximately 350 square meters. The Ministry of Industry and Trade has allocated separate funding for the equipment development, with plans to invest about 2 billion rubles in 2026.
The project aims to produce domestically manufactured alternative equipment to replace products from Applied Materials and Evatec. The new equipment will be used to produce chips using 180 to 90 nanometer processes on 200 mm wafers, enabling the deposition of aluminum, titanium, and titanium nitride layers for forming conductive paths and protective coatings without reliance on foreign systems.
Due to the stringent controlled environment requirements of the equipment, the project plans multiple separate areas, including the metallization deposition zone, measurement unit, and engineering system rooms. The main area must achieve ISO Class 6 cleanliness, while auxiliary areas require ISO Class 8.
Strict parameters must be maintained within the cleanroom: air filtered to 0.3 micron particles, temperature controlled at 22±2°C, humidity around 50%, and vibration not exceeding 6 microns per second. Additionally, backup power systems, ultra-pure gas supply, cooling systems, electromagnetic interference control, and continuous environmental parameter monitoring facilities are required.
Industry sources indicate that cleanroom construction is one of the most complex and costly tasks in Russia's microelectronics sector. After restrictions on Western supplies, some equipment and components for such systems still need to be sourced from abroad, primarily from China.
This cleanroom project is part of the development of an eight-module vacuum coating equipment system, equipped with two robotic manipulators for handling silicon wafers. Equipment manufacturing is scheduled for completion by the end of September 2030.
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