Temperature is one of the four most common types of process loops. While the other common loops—flow, level, and pressure—occur more often, temperature loops are generally more difficult and important. It is the single most frequently stated type of loop of interest to users, and the concern for better control extends to the widest variety of industries.

Temperature is a critical condition for reaction, fermentation, combustion, drying, calcination, crystallization, extrusion, or degradation rate, and is also an inference of a column tray concentration in the process industries.

Tight temperature control translates to lower defects and greater yields during seeding, crystal pulling, and rapid thermal processing of silicon wafers for the semiconductor industry.

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