• 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.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.9-12
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• 2004

Metallic impurities, such as Fe, Cu, and Au, become generation and recombination centers for minority carriers when combined with oxide precipitates or silicon self-interstitial clusters. As these centers may cause leakage and discharge in silicon devices, their prevention through gettering of the metallic impurities is an important issue. In this article, key aspects of intrinsic gettering, such as oxygen control, wafer cleaning, device area denudation, and bulk oxygen precipitation are discussed, and a practical method of implementing intrinsic gettering is outlined.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.55-64
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• 2003

Presently, the reuse of waste FCC catalysts, which generated from the refining process of crack oil, after the removal of con-taminated metallic impurities have not been attempted domestically yet because the separation technology f3r the impurities from waste catalysts has not been established. As a basic study far the reusable portion from the waste FCC catalysts and treatment of metallic impurities are assured, there will be invoked an significant contribution not only in the recycling of abandoned wastes up to date but also in the treatment efficiency of wastes and extraction of economical benefits from them. The magnetic separation of impurities such as Fe, Ni, and V, from waste FCC catalyst has been attempted with or without its pre-oxidation at high temperature for the purpose of its reuse. The results showed that the separability of impurities by magnetic force was high far non-preoxidized catalysts compared with preoxidized ones, and employment of screen-type matrix showed a higher separation efficiency than ball-type matrix. The separability increased with the strength of magnetic field, and the method of ball matrix has separation efficiency of maximum 51.10%. The amount of metallic impurities was in the decreasing order of V, Ni, and Fe depending upon ICP analysis.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.80-84
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• 2006

The removal efficiency of Cu and Fe contaminants on the silicon wafer surface was examined to investigate the effect of cleaning solutions on the behavior of metallic impurities. Silicon wafers were intentionally contaminated with Cu and Fe solutions by spin coating and cleaned in different types of cleaning solutions based on $NH_4OH/H_2O_2/H_2O\;(SC1),\;H_2O_2/HCl/H_2O$ (SC2), and/or HCl/$H_2O$ (m-SC2) mixtures. The concentration of metallic contaminants on the silicon wafer surface before and after cleaning was analyzed by vapor phase decomposition/inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (VPD/ICP-MS). Cu ions were effectively removed both in alkali (SC1) and in acid (SC2) based solutions. When $H_2O_2$ was not added to SC2 solution like m-SC2, the removal efficiency of Cu impurities was decreased drastically. The efficiency of Cu ions in SC1 was not changed by increasing cleaning temperature. Fe ions were soluble only in acid solution like SC2 or m-SC2 solution. The removal efficiencies of Fe ions in acid solutions were enhanced by increasing cleaning temperature. It is found that the behavior of metallic contaminants as Cu and Fe from silicon surfaces in cleaning solutions could be explained in terms of Pourbaix diagram.

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.283-290
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• 1995

Molybdenum ingot of 50mm in diameter were obtained from sintered Mo bars by EB drip melting technique. Macroscopic observation of EB remelted ingot indicates that coarse and columnar grains grow in the direction parallel to ingot pulling direction. This can be explained by slow solidification (3mm/min), large temperature gradient and heat flow to this direction. The orientation of columnar structure was found to be <110>, <200> and <211> by the analysis of X-ray diffraction patterns. The contents of typical metallic impurities in Mo sintered bar are 1.2ppm Cr, 3ppm Fe, 44ppm Zr, 150ppm W. Most of metallic impurities were reduced below the order of ppm except zirconium and tungsten by the selective evaporation. In the removal of nonmetallic impurities, oxygen and carbon impurities were lowered from 120 to 6ppm and from 157 to 106ppm, respectively, after first melting. Although the purification effect was not significant with the number of remelting, Vickers hardness was reduced from 217 to 195 and 184 in sequence with increasing the number of remelting.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.370-370
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• 2010

The effects of adding higher-valence impurities on the bipolar resistive switching characteristics of Pt/$NiO_{1+x}$/TiN MIM stacks and physical properties were investigated. $NiO_{1+x}$ films with 14% W deposited at 20% oxygen partial pressure exhibited the bipolar resistance switching characteristics in Pt/$NiO_{1+x}$/TiN MIM stacks, while $NiO_{1+x}$ films with 8.2% W show unipolar resistance switching behavior. The relationship of W-doping and the crystallinity was studied by X-ray diffraction. The metallic Ni contents and $WO_x$ binding states with W amount was investigated by XPS. Our result showed that the metallic Ni, $WO_x$ binding states, and crystallinity in $NiO_{1+x}$ played an important role on the bipolar resistive switching.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 1996.11a
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• pp.155-157
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• 1996

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.08a
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• pp.107.4-107
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• 1998

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.447-452
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• 1997

Effects of metal impurities in insulation of distribution cables on electrical conduction of distribution cables was investigated. Samples of Al, Cu, Fe are fabricated as metallic impurities, and measured electrical conductivity in the voltage range of 0~10 KV. Temperature dependent effect of hysteresis curves and the relationship between forward and reverse current due to impurity content are discussed.