Abstract
Pellicle is defined as a thin transparent film stretched over an aluminum (Al) frame that is glued on one side of a photomask. As semiconductor devices are pursuing higher levels of integration and higher resolution patterns, the cleaning of the Al flame surface is becoming a critical step because the contaminants on the Al flame can cause lithography exposure defects on the wafers. In order to remove these contaminants from the Al frame, a highly concentrated nitric acid ($HNO_3$) solution is used. However, it is difficult to fully remove them, which results in an increase in the Al surface roughness. In this paper, the pellicle frame cleaning is investigated using various cleaning solutions. When the mixture of sulfuric acid ($H_2SO_4$), hydrofluoric acid (HF), hydrogen peroxide ($H_2O_2$), and deionized water with ultrasonic is used, a high cleaning efficiency is achieved without $HNO_3$. Thus, this cleaning process is suitable for Al frame cleaning and it can also reduce the use of chemicals.
