Wafer Cleaning Process

Wafer Cleaning Process – Megasonic Cleaning Systems – Cheersonic

In the chip manufacturing industry, semiconductor cleaning runs through the industry, and the steps account for more than 30% of the total production process. It is a key process that affects the quality of wafers and chip performance, with a market space of more than 40 billion. Although it is inferior to core equipment such as lithography machines in terms of importance and equipment market scale, as an irreplaceable part, it has a crucial impact on the yield rate of chip production and the economic benefits of manufacturers.

At present, with the continuous improvement of the advanced level of the chip manufacturing process, the control requirements for the contamination on the wafer surface are constantly increasing. After each repetitive process such as lithography, etching, and deposition, a cleaning process is required. It can be determined that, The cleaning process is the most frequent of all processes and will increase further in the future.

At present, the cleaning methods of wafers include soaking, rotary spraying, mechanical brushing, ultrasonic, megasonic, plasma, gas phase, beam current, etc., mainly using a combination of wet cleaning and dry cleaning. Wet cleaning is the mainstream. However, it will cause slight damage to the material, such as pattern damage, COP (holes around 100nm), etc. Dry cleaning is used as a cleaner cleaning technology in part of the production line, and the prospects are more promising.