Review of Hazardous Agent Level in Wafer Fabrication Operation Focusing on Exposure to Chemicals and Radiation

Park, Donguk

doi:10.15269/jksoeh.2016.26.1.1

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 27 publications

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“…The weight of the wafer increases along with its diameter, which makes manual handling of wafers difficult. To overcome this issue, many processes have become automated and older processes, chemicals, and operational methods that had been used to produce smaller wafers are being phased out [ 28 , 29 ]. Therefore, differences in occupational exposure based on the semiconductor production period must be considered.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship between spontaneous abortion and female workers in the semiconductor industry

Kim

Kwon

Rhie

et al. 2017

Ann of Occup and Environ Med

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BackgroundThis study investigated the relationship between job type and the risk for spontaneous abortion to assess the reproductive toxicity of female workers in the semiconductor industry.MethodsA questionnaire survey was administered to current female workers of two semiconductor manufacturing plants in Korea. We included female workers who became pregnant at least 6 months after the start of their employment with the company. The pregnancy outcomes of 2,242 female workers who experienced 4,037 pregnancies were investigated. Personnel records were used to assign the subjects to one of three groups: fabrication process workers, packaging process workers, and clerical workers. To adjust for within-person correlations between pregnancies, a generalized estimating equation was used. The logistic regression analysis was limited to the first pregnancy after joining the company to satisfy the assumption of independence among pregnancies. Moreover, we stratified the analysis by time period (pregnancy in the years prior to 2008 vs. after 2009) to reflect differences in occupational exposure based on semiconductor production periods.ResultsThe risk for spontaneous abortion in female semiconductor workers was not significantly higher for fabrication and packaging process workers than for clerical workers. However, when we stratified by time period, the odds ratio for spontaneous abortion was significantly higher for packaging process workers who became pregnant prior to 2008 when compared with clerical workers (odds ratio: 2.21; 95% confidence interval: 1.01–4.81).ConclusionsWhen examining the pregnancies of female semiconductor workers that occurred prior to 2008, packaging process workers showed a significantly higher risk for spontaneous abortions than did clerical workers. The two semiconductor production periods in our study (prior to 2008 vs. after 2009) had different automated processes, chemical exposure levels, and working environments. Thus, the conditions prior to 2008 may have increased the risk for spontaneous abortions in packaging process workers in the semiconductor industry.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s40557-017-0204-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%