D. Martin Knotter, Philips Semiconductors, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, & Jagdish Prasad, AMI Semiconductor, Pocatello, Idaho, USA

ABSTRACT

As new materials are introduced in semiconductor manufacturing at future technology nodes, new substrate cleaning processes are needed to meet the contamination requirements posed by ever shrinking geometries. Substrate cleaning requirements usually involve surface contamination such as micro-roughness, particles, metals and watermarks. The cleaning process usually varies with the substrate being cleaned. Therefore, it is very helpful to the manufacturing engineers to have cleaning processes for various substrates used in the semiconductor industry in one place as a reference. It is also important to understand the fundamental principles of cleaning and drying and therefore, in this paper we also present the basic principles of these processes. We have compiled the information on the cleaning processes used for various substrates in the semiconductor industry. The purpose of this article is to serve as a reference document on cleaning processes and chemistries used for various substrates in semiconductor manufacturing.