• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.74-79
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• 2002

In the a 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 increases. 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 the environmental issue. To resolve this matter, candidates of advanced cleaning processes has been studied. One of them is to apply the electrolyzed water. In this work, Compared with surface on Si wafer with electrolyzed water cleaning and various chemicals cleaning, and analyzed Si wafer surface condition treated with elecoolyzed water by cleaning temperature and cleaning time. Especially. concentrate upon the contact angle. finally, contact angle on surface treated with cathode water cleaning is 17.28, and anode water cleaning is 34.1.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.66-71
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• 2023

This paper describes a hybrid cleaning method of silicon wafer combining nano-bubble and ultrasound to remove sub-micron particles and contaminants with minimal damage to the wafer surface. In the megasonic cleaning process of semiconductor manufacturing, the cavitation induced by ultrasound can oscillate and collapse violently often with re-entrant jet formation leading to surface damage. The smaller size of cavitation bubbles leads to more stable oscillations with more thermal and viscous damping, thus to less erosive surface cleaning. In this study, ultrasonic energy was applied to the wafer surface in the DI water to excite nano-bubbles at resonance to remove contaminant particles from the surface. A patented nano-bubble generator was developed for the generation of nano-bubbles with concentration of 1×10⁹ bubbles/ml and nominal nano-bubble diameter of 150 nm. Ultrasonic nano-bubble technology improved a contaminant removal efficiency more than 97% for artificial nano-sized particles of alumina and Latex with significant reduction in cleaning time without damage to the wafer surface.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.284-286
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• 2000

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.31-40
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• 2005

In this study, we study measurement of wafer processing throughput and sequence simulation of single wafer type for wafer cleaning equipments that were used for etching, cleaning and polishing of wafer. Based on finite state machine, simulation model was built with identification of robot's status according to scheduling algorithm. Moreover, through performance of simulation as above, throughput per hour of cleaning equipment was measured. By the simulation method that are proposed in this paper, we could measure the wafer throughput per hour according to recipe and robot motion speed, and find optimal recipe and moving sequence of robot that maximize the throughput.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.99.2-99.2
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• 2010

This paper investigates the dependence of a-Si:H/c-Si passivation and heterojunction solar cell performances on various cleaning processes of silicon wafer and surface morphology. It is observed that passivation quality of a-Si:H thin-films on c-Si wafer highly depends on wafer surface conditions. The MCLT(Minority carrier life time) of wafer incorporating intrinsic (i) a-Si:H as a passivation layer shows sensitive variation with cleaning process and surface morpholgy. By applying improved cleaning processes and surface morphology we can obtain the MCLT of $200{\mu}sec$ after H-termination and above 1.5msec after i a-Si:H thin film deposition, which has implied open circuit voltage of 0.720V.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.75-79
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• 2006

The effect of ozone and/or ultrasound treatments on the efficiency of slurry removal in post sliced cleaning (PSC) of silicon ingot was studied. Efficiency of slurry removal was evaluated as functions of time, temperature and surfactant with DOE (Design of Experiment) method. Residual slurries were observed on the wafer surface in case of cleaning by ozone or ultrasound separately. However, a clean wafer surface was appeared when cleaned with ozone and ultrasound simultaneously. It has found that cleaning time was the main effect among temperature, time and surfactant. Elevated temperature, addition of surfactant and high ozone concentration helped to accelerate efficient removal of slurry. The improvement of removal efficiency seems to be related to the formation of more active OH radicals. The highly cleaned surface was achieved at 10 wt% ozone, 1 min and 10 vol% surfactant with ultrasound. Application of ozone and ultrasound might be a useful method for PSC process in wafer cleaning.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.97-100
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• 2021

We report the effect of Standard Clean-1 (SC-1) cleaning to remove residual Ti layers after silicidation to prevent Al diffusion into Si wafer for Ti Schottky barrier diodes (Ti-SBD). Regardless of SC-1 cleaning, the presence of oxygen atoms is confirmed by Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) depth profile analysis between Al and Ti-silicide layers. Al atoms at the interface of Ti-silicide and Si wafer are detected, when the SC-1 cleaning is not conducted after rapid thermal annealing. On the other hand, Al atoms are not found at the interface of Ti-SBD after executing SC-1 cleaning. Al diffusion into the interface between Ti-silicide and Si wafer may be caused by thermal stress at the Ti-silicide layer. The difference of the thermal expansion coefficients of Ti and Ti-silicide gives rise to thermal stress at the interface during the Al layer deposition and sintering processes. Although a longer sintering time is conducted for Ti-SBD, the Al atoms do not diffuse into the surface of the Si wafer. Therefore, the removal of the Ti layer by the SC-1 cleaning can prevent Al diffusion for Ti-SBD.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.25-30
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• 2021

The surface of silicon dummy wafers is contaminated with metallic impurities owing to the reaction with and adhesion of chemicals during the oxidation process. These metallic impurities negatively affect the device performance, reliability, and yield. To solve this problem, a wafer-cleaning process that removes metallic impurities is essential. RCA (Radio Corporation of America) cleaning is commonly used, but there are problems such as increased surface roughness and formation of metal hydroxides. Herein, we attempt to use a chelating agent (EDTA) to reduce the surface roughness, improve the stability of cleaning solutions, and prevent the re-adsorption of impurities. The bonding between the cleaning solution and metal powder is analyzed by referring to the Pourbaix diagram. The changes in the ionic conductivity, H2O2 decomposition behavior, and degree of dissolution are checked with a conductivity meter, and the changes in the absorbance and particle size before and after the reaction are confirmed by ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) analyses. Thus, the addition of a chelating agent prevents the decomposition of H2O2 and improves the life of the silicon wafer cleaning solution, allowing it to react smoothly with metallic impurities.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.17-23
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• 2023

In semiconductor manufacturing processes, a cleaning process is important that can remove sub-micron particles. Conventional wet cleaning methods using chemical have limits in removing nano-particles. Thus, physical forces of a mechanical vibration up to 1 MHz frequency, was tried to aid in detaching them from the substrates. In this article, we developed a 1 MHz quartz megasonic for a bare wafer cleaning using finite element analysis. At first, a 1 MHz megasonic prototype was manufactured. Using the results, a main product which can improve a particle removal performance, was analyzed and designed. The maximum impedance frequency was 992 kHz, which agreed well with the experimental value of 986 kHz (0.6% error). Acoustic pressure distributions were measured, and the result showed that maximum / average was 400.0~432.4%, and standard deviation / average was 46.4~47.3%. Finally, submicron particles were deposited and cleaned for the assessment of the system performance. As a result, the particle removal efficiency (PRE) was proved to be 92% with 11 W power. Reflecting these results, the developed product might be used in the semiconductor 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.