Dow Electronic Materials Announces Two New VISIONPAD™ Polishing Pads for Advanced IC Manufacturing

Dow Electronic Materials (NYSE:DOW), a leader and innovator in chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) technology for the global semiconductor industry, today introduced its latest VISIONPAD™ polishing pads VISIONPAD™ 6000 and VISIONPAD™ 5200. These new polishing pads further extend Dow’s ability to offer customers application-specific solutions targeted at technology improvements for polishing at advanced nodes and improved productivity at existing nodes. VISIONPAD™ 6000 and VISIONPAD™ 5200 are currently in production and are in qualification with multiple customers.

"Dow’s VISIONPAD™ polishing pad series offers the industry an unparalleled CMP platform specifically designed for current and next-generation manufacturing,” said Austin Chen, South Asia Regional General Manager for Dow Electronic Materials. "Our innovative R&D drove the development of the VISIONPAD™ platform, which gives us the ability to offer the right pad for specific CMP applications. These VISIONPAD™ polishing pads are higher-performing and allow for reduced consumable costs.”

VISIONPAD™ 6000 polishing pads deliver leading-edge technology designed specifically to improve defectivity and dishing for inter-layer dielectrics (ILD) and Copper (Cu) bulk applications. VISIONPAD™ 6000 polishing pads are engineered with a low-defect, low-hardness polymer chemistry and optimized pore size, which deliver improved defectivity and dishing and can exceed the removal rates of the IC1000™ polishing pads. In customer testing VISIONPAD™ 6000 demonstrated a 50 to 60 percent reduction in scratch defects, a 35 percent reduction in dishing and equivalent wafer non-uniformity to the IC1000™ polishing pads.

VISIONPAD™ 5200 polishing pads offer next-generation technology that achieves a high removal rate for Tungsten (W), ILD and Cu bulk processes. VISIONPAD™ 5200 polishing pads implement unique polymer chemistry and higher pad porosity that achieve a 10 to 30 percent increase in removal rate for W, ILD and Cu Bulk applications. This increased removal rate allows the customer to reduce polishing times and slurry consumption to significantly lower CMP cost of consumables. VISIONPAD™ 5200 polishing pads also offer a 10 to 20 percent reduction in defectivity in W and Cu applications, and improved dishing and erosion in W applications over Dow’s standard IC1000™ polishing pads.

"Our ability to both develop advanced technologies like VISIONPAD™ polishing pads and deliver them in high volumes thanks to our global manufacturing capabilities are critical differentiators that Dow brings to the global semiconductor manufacturing market,” concluded Chen.

To provide the highest quality and consistency, all VISIONPAD™ products are manufactured using stringent SPC/SQC methods at Dow’s high volume manufacturing facilities in Taiwan, the United States and Japan.

About Dow

Dow combines the power of science and technology with the "Human Element” to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress.

The Company connects chemistry and innovation with the principles of sustainability to help address many of the world's most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, renewable energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity.

Dow's diversified industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 160 countries and in high growth sectors such as electronics, water, energy, coatings and agriculture. In 2009, Dow had annual sales of $45 billion and employed approximately 52,000 people worldwide. The Company's more than 5,000 products are manufactured at 214 sites in 37 countries across the globe. References to "Dow" or the "Company" mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted. More information about Dow can be found at www.dow.com.

About Dow Electronic Materials

Dow Electronic Materials, a global supplier of materials and technologies to the electronics industry, brings innovative leadership to the semiconductor, interconnect, finishing, photovoltaic, display, LED and optics markets. From advanced technology centers worldwide, teams of talented Dow research scientists and application experts work closely with customers, providing solutions, products and technical service necessary for next-generation electronics. These partnerships energize Dow’s power to invent. Its key end-use applications include a broad range of consumer electronics from personal computers, to television monitors, cellular phones, global positioning systems, automobile safety systems, and avionics.

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