Nanoscale Particles Removal on an Extreme Ultra-Violet Lithography (EUVL) Mask Layer

Lee, Sang-Ho; Lee, Sung-Ho; Park, Jin-Goo; Busnaina, Ahmed A; Lee, Jong-Myung; Kim, Tae-Hoon; Zhang, Guojing; Eschbach, Florence

doi:10.1149/ma2005-02/20/754

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The use of laser-induced plasma shock waves instead of direct laser irradiation onto the substrate surface has been recently tried to clean EUVL masks. 60 This method has been used, in combination with an x-y-z translation stage, for whole-wafer (or whole-mask) cleaning rather than local-area, pinpoint cleaning. We must be mindful of the possibility of structural damage by using this kind of physically assisted cleaning.…”

Section: Pinpoint Cleaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-Aqueous Cleaning Challenges for Preventing Damage to Fragile Nano-Structures: A Review

Hattori¹

2013

ECS J. Solid State Sci. Technol.

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With semiconductor-device geometry shrinking and becoming more complex, highly diluted chemicals are used during aqueous silicon wafer cleaning. The use of physical cleaning aids such as megasonic agitation with dilute chemistry or high-pressure atomizing jet sprays to avoid reduction of particle removal efficiency is prone to cause structural damage to both fragile freestanding MEMS and high-aspect-ratio LSI structures. The surface tension of water can also cause pattern collapse of nano-structures. In addition to this, ultra-pure water can cause several other problems resulting in the degradation of device characteristics. These problems make the development of novel damage free non-aqueous cleaning methods a high priority. In this paper, several water-caused problems to bring damage to silicon devices are discussed with some possible solutions and, as the ultimate solutions to overcome the shortcomings of water-based cleaning, various alternative damage-free non-aqueous cleaning techniques are overviewed and discussed, which include low pressure, elevated temperature HF vapor cleaning, cryogenic aerosol nitrogen cleaning, supercritical carbon dioxide cleaning, and pinpoint dry cleaning that employs lasers, nano-probes, or nano-tweezers. There will be more research challenges and opportunities in these environmentally-benign damage-free cleaning technologies in the near future.

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Section: Pinpoint Cleaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-Aqueous Cleaning Challenges for Preventing Damage to Fragile Nano-Structures: A Review

Hattori¹

2013

ECS J. Solid State Sci. Technol.

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“…8. Various pinpoint cleaning methods that address particle removal have been proposed (28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33). These pinpoint cleaning techniques are used by combining with wafer-surface inspection equipment that accurately maps the location and size of the nano-particles on the wafer (34).…”

Section: Pinpoint Cleaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The use of laser-induced plasma shock waves instead of direct laser irradiation onto the substrate surface has been recently tried to clean EUVL masks (33). This method has been used, in combination with a x-y-z translation stage, for whole-wafer (or whole-mask) cleaning rather than local-area, pinpoint cleaning.…”

Section: Laser Irradiationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-Aqueous/Dry Cleaning Technology without Causing Damage to Fragile Nano-Structures

Hattori¹

2009

ECS Trans.

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With semiconductor-device geometry shrinking and becoming more complex, conventional aqueous cleaning/drying tends to collapse free-standing MEMS and high-aspect-ratio fragile LSI structures due to the high surface tension of aqueous chemicals and water. The use of physical cleaning aids such as megasonics with dilute chemistry or high-pressure atomizing jet sprays can also cause damage to nano-structures. The process window for damage-free cleaning is also becoming narrower as device geometry shrinks. This makes the development of new damagefree cleaning methods a high priority. In this paper, various alternative damage-free non-aqueous/dry cleaning techniques are described and discussed including low pressure, elevated temperature HF vapor cleaning, cryogenic aerosol cleaning, supercritical CO 2 cleaning, and pinpoint dry cleaning that employs lasers, nano-probes, or nano-tweezers. There will be more research challenges and opportunities in these environmentally-benign damage-free cleaning technologies in the future. IntroductionAs semiconductor devices become ever more highly integrated and their geometry continues to shrink, even slight silicon and oxide etching loss during wafer cleaning can have a negative impact on the characteristics of metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) transistors (1). Therefore, highly diluted chemicals are used during aqueous silicon-wafer cleaning (2, 3), such as conventional RCA cleaning, to minimize the material loss. Dilute chemistry is also preferable from the viewpoints of both micro-roughness control of the silicon surface and environmental control of the chemical consumption.However, it is difficult to remove particles to the extent desirable with highly diluted chemicals. In order to enhance the particle-removal efficiency, physical aids such as megasonic agitation are generally employed (4), but it tends to cause structural damage to fragile LSI circuit patterns. Reducing the megasonic power can reduce the megasonic damage to the fragile structures, but it also reduces the particle-removal efficiency. In order to reduce the device damage by the megasonic energy, some modifications such as an addition of lower-ionization-potential gas and/or liquids to DI water have been proposed (5). In general, conventional aqueous cleaning methods using any kind of sonification become less effective as the particle diameters get smaller.An alternative physical technique, a DI-water/gas-mixture jet spray cleaning technique, has been reported (6). This technique has an advantage over megasonics because it can remove smaller particles due to the greater impact of droplets at near-sonic speed. Thus, the water/gas jet spray at a high flow rate or at high speed of the carrier gas without any addition of chemicals can remove particles on unpatterned wafer surfaces without material loss caused by chemical etching. But we must be mindful of the possibility of structural damage on patterned wafers that can be caused by this type of physically assisted treatment as well as megasonic agitation. In fact,...

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Nanoscale Particles Removal on an Extreme Ultra-Violet Lithography (EUVL) Mask Layer

Abstract: not Available.

Cited by 2 publications

References 4 publications

Non-Aqueous Cleaning Challenges for Preventing Damage to Fragile Nano-Structures: A Review

Non-Aqueous Cleaning Challenges for Preventing Damage to Fragile Nano-Structures: A Review

Non-Aqueous/Dry Cleaning Technology without Causing Damage to Fragile Nano-Structures

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