Fluid Heads – Beyond Rinsing and Drying

IBM introduced the fluid head several years ago as a device to improve rinsing and drying without having to increase the length of existing equipment. Since then they have shown themselves to be very efficient in both applications, especially in drying where they have virtually replaced our traditional dryers in most new equipment. Inevitably the question was raised as to whether they would provide similar efficiency in the actual processes prior to rinsing and drying. Auid heads have been tried in rnicro-etching prior to resist lamination, dry film developing and stripping, and, of course, etching in the hope that they would show equal or superior results in a shorter chamber than the traditional spray applications used in these processes. The reports on the results of these tests have been somewhat contradictory with some saying the hoped for improvements were seen and others saying there was no improvement or that the results were worse than spray applications. The purpose of this paper is to report the results we have seen thus far in our tests and the conclusions we have drawn from them.