• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.544-548
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• 2008

At the semiconductor industry, Photoresist(PR) strip progress has high cost and time consuming process. Accordingly, many research group have been focused on the shortening of the PR strip progress. But the replacements of newly developed materials rather than normally used strip have accompanied by cost consumption. Therefore, we suggested the Plasma Liquid-Vapor Activation (PLVA) method of general PR strip solution for saving the PR strip time and the high strip rate of PR residue. The PLVA method was very effective for PR strip progress. Also, the ion damaged PR(high dose implanted photoresist: HDI-PR) was almost impossible to strip. However, it was very difficult to characterize the change of chemical composition of HDI-PR between with and without PLVA method. Thus, physical properties of HDI-PR surface with and without PLVA method were measured by using the nano-indenter system.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.97-101
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• 2009

In the modem semiconductor industry, the progress that consumes the most capital and labor is cleansing process. Cleansing process is to remove impurities that can affect the operation of the device and deteriorate its function. Especially, Photoresist (PR) progress that etches the device always requires cleansing at the end of the progress. Also, HDI-PR (High-Dose Ion-implanted Photoresist) created from PR progress is difficult to remove. Thus, in modem IC cleansing, many steps of cleansing are used, including dry and wet cleansing. In this paper, we suggested to combine existing dry-cleansing and wet-cleansing, each represented by plasma cleansing and stripper solution, as Plasma Liquid-Vapor Activation (PLVA). This PLVA method enhances the effect of existing cleansing solution, and decreases the amount of solution and time required to strip. We stripped HDI-PR by activated solution and measured surface hardness and Young's modulus by Nano-indenter. Nano-indenter is the equipment that determines the hardness and the modulus of elasticity by indenting nano-sized tip with specific shape into the surface and measuring weight and z-axis displacement. We measured the change of surface hardness and Young's modulus before and after the cleansing. As a result, we found out that the surface hardness of the sample sharply decreased after the cleansing by plasma-activated PR stripper solution. It can be considered that if physical surface-cleansing process is inserted after this, more effective elimination of HDI-PR is possible.