• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.1-6
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• 2003

In the rapid changes of the semiconductor manufacturing technologies for early 21st century, it may be safely said that a kernel of terms is the size increase of Si wafer and the size decrease of semiconductor devices. As the size of Si wafers increases and semiconductor device is miniaturized, the units of cleaning processes increase. A present cleaning technology is based upon RCA cleaning which consumes vast chemicals and ultra pure water (UPW) and is the high temperature process. Therefore, this technology gives rise to environmental issue. To resolve this matter, candidates of advanced cleaning processes have been studied. One of them is to apply the electrolyzed water. In this work, electrolyzed water cleaning was compared with various chemical cleaning, using Si wafer surfaces by changing cleaning temperature and cleaning time, and especially, concentrating upon the contact angle. It was observed that contact angle on surface treated with Electrolyzed water cleaning was $4.4^{\circ}$ without RCA cleaning. Amine series additive of high pKa (negative logarithm of the acidity constant) was used to observe the property changes of cathode water.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2000.04b
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• pp.1-5
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• 2000

As the semiconductor devices are miniaturized, the number of the unit cleaning processes increases. In order to processes by conventional RCA cleaning process, the consumption of volume of liquid chemical and DI water became huge. Therefore, the problem of environmental issues are evolved by the increased consumption of chemicals. To resolve this matter, an advanced cleaning process by Electrolyzed Water was studied in this work. The electrolyzed water was made by an electrolysis equipment which was composed of three chambers of anode, cathode, and middle chambers. In the case of electrolyzed water with electrolytes in the middle chamber, oxidatively acidic water of anode and reductively alkaline water of cathode were obtained. The oxidation/reduction potentials and pH of anode water and cathode water were measured to be +l000mV and 4.8, and -530mV and 6.3, respectively. The Si-wafers contaminated with metallic impurities were cleaning with the electrolyzed water. To analysis the amounts of metallic impurities on Si-water surfaces, ICP-MS(Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass spectrometer) was introduced. From results of ICP-MS measurements, it was concluded that the ability of electrolyzed water was equivalent to that of the conventional RCA cleaning.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society Of Semiconductor Equipment Technology
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.117-119
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• 2002

A semiconductor cleaning technology has been based upon RCA cleaning which consumes vast amounts of chemicals and ultra pure water. This technology hence gives rise to many environmental issues, and some alternatives such as electrolyzed water are being studied. In this work, intentionally contaminated Si wafers were cleaned using the electrolyzed water. The electrolyzed waters were obtained in anode and cathode with oxidation reduction potentials and pH of -1050mV and 4.8, and -750mV and 10.0, respectively. The electrolyzed water deterioration was correlated with $CO_2$ concentration changes dissolved from air. Overflowing of electrolyzed water during cleaning particles resulted in the same cleanness as could be obtained with RCA clean. The roughness of patterned wafer surfaces after EW clean maintained that of as-received wafers. RCA clean consumed about $9\ell$ chemicals, while electrolyzed water clean did only $400m\ell$ HCl or $600m\ell$ $NH_4$Cl to clean 8" wafers in this study. It was hence concluded that electrolyzed water cleaning technology would be very effective for releasing environment, safety, and health(ESH) issues in the next generation semiconductor manufacturing.ring.

• Proceedings of the KAIS Fall Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.124-128
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• 2001

A present semiconductor cleaning technology is based upon RCA cleaning technology which consumes vast amounts of chemicals and ultra pure water(UPW) and is the high temperature Process. Therefore, this technology gives rise to the many environmental issues, and some alternatives such as functional water cleaning are being studied. The electrolyzed water was generated by an electrolysis system which consists of anode, cathode, and middle chambers. Oxidative water and reductive water were obtained in anode and cathode chambers, respectively. In case of NH$_4$Cl electrolyte, the oxidation-reduction potential and pH for anode water(AW) and cathode water(CW) were measured to be +1050mV and 4.8, and -750mV and 10.0, respectively. AW and CW were deteriorated after electrolyzed, but maintained their characteristics for more than 40 minutes sufficiently enough for cleaning. Their deterioration was correlated with CO$_2$ concentration changes dissolved from air. It was known that AW was effective for Cu removal, while CW was more effective for Fe removal. The particle distributions after various particle removal processes maintained the same pattern. In this work, RCA consumed about 9$\ell$chemicals, while EW did only 400$m\ell$ HCI electrolyte or 600$m\ell$ NH$_4$Cl electrolyte. It was hence concluded that EW cleaning technology would be very effective for eliminating environment, safety, and health(ESH) issues in the next generation semiconductor manufacturing.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.251-257
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• 2001

A present semiconductor cleaning technology is based upon RCA cleaning, high temperature process which consumes vast chemicals and ultra Pure water(UPW). This technology gives rise to the many environmental issues, therefore some alternatives have been studied. In this study, intentionally contaminated Si wafers were cleaned using the electrolyzed water(EW). The EW was generated by an electrolysis equipment which was composed of anode. cathode, and toddle chambers. Oxidative water and reductive water were obtained in anode and cathode chambers, respectively. In case $NH_4$Cl electrolyte, the oxidation-reduction potential(ORP) and pH for anode water(AW) and cathode water(CW) were measured to be +1050mV and 4.7, and -750mV and 9.8, respectively. For cleaning metallic impurities, AW was confirmed to be more effective than that of CW, and the particle distribution after various particle removal processes was shown to be same distribution.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.94-98
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• 2012

The behavior of ozone micro bubble cleaning system was investigated to evaluate the solution as a new method of solar cell wafer cleaning in comparison with former conventional RCA cleaning. We have developed the ozone dissolution system in the ozonated water for more efficient cleaning conditions. The optimized cleaning conditions for solar cell wafer process were 10 ppm of ozone concentration and 12 minutes in cleaning periods, respectively. We have confirmed the cleaning reliability and cell efficiencies after ozone micro bubble cleaning. Using this new cleaning technology, it was possible to obtain higher efficiency, higher productivity, and fast tact time for applying cleaning in the fields on bare ingot wafer, LED wafers as well as the solar cell wafer.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.4 no.8
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• pp.921-926
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• 1994

The characteristics of gate oxide significantly depend on the last chemical solution used in cleaning process. The standard RCA, HF-last, SC1-last, and HF-only processes are the pre-gate oxide cleaning processes utilized in this experiment. Cleaning process was followed by thermal oxidation in oxidation furnace at $900^{\circ}C$. A 100$\AA$ gate oxide was grown and characterized with using lifetime detector, VPD AAS, SIMS, TEM, and AFM. The results of HF-last and HF-only were shown to be very effective to remove the metallic impurities. And these two splits also showed long minority carrier lifetimes. The surface and interface morphologies of the oxide were examined with AFM and TEM. The rough surface morphologies were observed with the cleaning splits containing the SC1 solution. The smooth surface and interface was observed with the HF-only cleaning process.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.479-485
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• 2002

We have investigated the effects of various wafers cleaning on glass/Si bonding using 4 inch Pyrex glass wafers and 4 inch silicon wafers. The various wafer cleaning methods were examined; SPM(sulfuric-peroxide mixture, $H_2SO_4:H_2O_2$ = 4 : 1, $120^{\circ}C$), RCA(company name, $NH_4OH:H_2O_2:H_2O$ = 1 : 1 : 5, $80^{\circ}C$), and combinations of those. The best room temperature bonding result was achieved when wafers were cleaned by SPM followed by RCA cleaning. The minimum increase in surface roughness measured by AFM(atomic force microscope) confirmed such results. During successive heat treatments, the bonding strength was improved with increased annealing temperatures up to $400^{\circ}C$, but debonding was observed at $450^{\circ}C$. The difference in thermal expansion coefficients between glass and Si wafer led debonding. When annealed at fixed temperatures(300 and $400^{\circ}C$), bonding strength was enhanced until 28 hours, but then decreased for further anneal. To find the cause of decrease in bonding strength in excessively long annealing time, the ion distribution at Si surface was investigated using SIMS(secondary ion mass spectrometry). tons such as sodium, which had been existed only in glass before annealing, were found at Si surface for long annealed samples. Decrease in bonding strength can be caused by the diffused sodium ions to pass the glass/si interface. Therefore, maximum bonding strength can be achieved when the cleaning procedure and the ion concentrations at interface are optimized in glass/Si wafer direct bonding.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.78-82
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• 2005

Display manufacturing process has adopted RCA cleaning, applying to larger area and coping with environmental issue for last ten years. However, the approaching concept of ozonized, hydrogenised, or electrolyzed water cleaning technologies is within RCA clean paradigm. In this work, only electrolyzed anode water was applied to clean particles and organics as well as metals based on Pourbaix concept, and as a test vehicle, MgO particles were introduced to prove the new concept. The electrolyzed anode water is very oxidative with high oxidation reduction potential (ORP) and low in pH of more than 900 mV and 3.1, respectively. MgO particles were immersed in the anode water and its weight losses due to dissolution were measured with time. Weight losses were in the ranges of 100 to 500 micrograms in 250 ml anode water depending on their ORP and pH. Therefore it was concluded that the cleaning radicals in the anode water was at least in the range of 1 to $5{\times}10^{20}$ ea per 250 ml anode water equivalent to $1{\times}10^{18} ea/cm^2$. Hence it can be assumed that the anode water applied to display cleaning from now on $1{\times}10^{10}$ to $1{\times}10^{15} ea/cm^2$ ranges of contaminants are being treated. In addition, it was observed that anode water did not develop micro-roughness on hydrophobic surface while it did on the native silicon oxide.

• Clean Technology
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.215-223
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• 2001

A present semiconductor cleaning technology is based upon RCA cleaning technology which consumes vast amounts of chemicals and ultra pure water(UPW) and is the high temperature process. Therefore, this technology gives rise to the many environmental issues, and some alternatives such as electrolyzed water(EW) are being studied. In this work, intentionally contaminated Si wafers were cleaned using the electrolyzed water. The electrolyzed water was generated by an electrolysis system which consists of three anode, cathode, and middle chambers. Oxidative water and reductive water were obtained in anode and cathode chambers, respectively. In case of NH4Cl electrolyte, the oxidation-reduction potential and pH for anode water(AW) and cathode water(CW) were measured to be +1050mV and 4.8, and -750mV and 10.0, respectively. AW and CW were deteriorated after electrolyzed, but maintained their characteristics for more than 40 minutes sufficiently enough for cleaning. Their deterioration was correlated with CO2 concentration changes dissolved from air. Contact angles of UPW, AW, and CW on DHF treated Si wafer surfaces were measured to be $65.9^{\circ}$, $66.5^{\circ}$ and $56.8^{\circ}$, respectively, which characterizes clearly the eletrolyzed water. To analyze the amount of metallic impurities on Si wafer surface, ICP-MS was introduced. It was known that AW was effective for Cu removal, while CW was more effective for Fe removal. To analyze the number of particles on Si wafer surfaces, Tencor 6220 were introduced. The particle distributions after various particle removal processes maintained the same pattern. In this work, RCA consumed about $9{\ell}$ chemicals, while EW did only $400m{\ell}$ HCl electrolyte or $600m{\ell}$ NH4Cl electrolyte. It was hence concluded that EW cleaning technology would be very effective for promoting environment, safety, and health(ESH) issues in the next generation semiconductor manufacturing.