Dow Electronic Materials Launches New IKONIC™ 4000 Series CMP Polishing Pads for Ceria Polishing Applications

New pads deliver industry-leading stability and low defectivity; extend advantages of IKONIC™ technology into new applications

Seoul, Korea - February 13, 2014

Dow Electronic Materials
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Dow Electronic Materials, a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE:DOW), today introduced the IKONIC™ 4000 series of chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) polishing pads. This series of pads are initially targeting ceria-based applications.

"The industry's overall response to IKONIC™ technology has been extremely favorable," said Colin Cameron, director of marketing CMPT Dow Electronic Materials. “The IKONIC 4000 series provides many of the critical attributes common to our most advanced product designs. The pads are highly tunable and can be customized to address process specific requirements. Dow's volume manufacturing methods and commitment to process control further enhance performance by ensuring consistency and reliability in our customer's processes” said Cameron.

The new IKONIC 4000 series balances the historic trade-off associated with cutting edge planarization requirements and low defectivity. The novel chemistries deliver removal rate stability over pad life, making them ideal for the challenges associated with ceria based polishing applications. The IKONIC 4000 series delivers step-out defectivity performance representing a 70 percent improvement when compared with the industry-standard IC1000 polishing pad.

Developed in collaboration with Dow's customers, the IKONIC 4000 series is available in multiple formulations featuring a range of hardness and porosity. This allows for customization to address specific customer requirements. The pads are also optimized for easier conditioning and to maintain consistent texture throughout the pad's lifetime.

The IKONIC 4000 series has been successfully qualified and samples are available now.

About IKONIC CMP Polishing Pads

The IKONIC platform combines a unique set of chemistries with flexible design density, offering customers a wide range of customized solutions. The pads are designed to improve defectivity performance for higher wafer yields, with the potential for extended pad lifetime, leading to greater tool uptime. IKONIC CMP pads meet a range of removal-rate targets for throughput gains and selectivity requirements to address process needs. Select products from the IKONIC family can also help improve planarization efficiency and wafer topography. These benefits make the IKONIC polishing pad platform an excellent choice for a wide range of advanced polishing applications.

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, smart phones and tablets and other mobile devices as well as electronic devices and systems used in a variety of industries. More information about Dow Electronic Materials can be found at http://www.dowelectronicmaterials.com.

About Dow

Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company is driving innovations that extract value from the intersection of chemical, physical and biological sciences to help address many of the world's most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, clean energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow's integrated, market-driven, 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 180 countries and in high growth sectors such as packaging, electronics, water, coatings and agriculture. In 2013, Dow had annual sales of more than $57 billion and employed approximately 53,000 people worldwide. The Company's more than 6,000 products are manufactured at 201 sites in 36 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.

For Editorial Information:

Robin Sprague
Dow Electronic Materials
+1 302 366 0500
[email protected]

Amy Smith
Impress Labs
+1 401 369 9266
[email protected]

Ina Chu
Impress Labs
+1 217 766 1011
[email protected]

Dow Electronic Materials
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