Cleaning composition and method

#The present invention is directed to a composition and method for cleaning built-up organic residues from a substrate. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a composition and method for cleaning built-up organic residues that are difficult to emulsify.

#Contaminants such as built-up organic residue and scum present difficult cleaning problems for various industries. One such industry is the electronics industry where organic residue and scum from photoresist can build-up on various products and apparatus. Photoresist materials are employed in the manufacturing of semiconductor devices, and electronic components such as integrated circuits, photomasks for the manufacture of integrated circuits, printed wiring boards and the like as well as planographic printing plates. In photolithographic processing, a step in the process of making electronic devices and components, a substrate surface is coated with a photoresist, i.e., a coating composition that is sensitive to actinic radiation, e.g., ultraviolet light, X-rays, electron beams and the like, to give a layer that is sensitive to actinic radiation which is irradiated pattern-wise with the actinic radiation. The irradiated photoresist is then developed with a developer solution to form a patterned photoresist layer that serves to selectively protect the substrate surface from etching, plating or diffusion of dopants.

#Photoresists may be positive-working, or negative-working. Such photoresists may be liquid, or dry film. A photoresist composition of the positive-working type has such a photosensitivity that solubility of the composition in the developer solution is increased by exposure to light so that the patterned photoresist layer is formed on the areas unexposed to ultraviolet light where the composition is left undissolved. A negative-working photoresist composition exhibits behavior of a sensitivity and solubility that is the reverse of the positive-working photoresist.

#FIGURE shows a photograph of residue filtered from a solution treated with a cleaning composition of the present invention versus a non-treated solution.

#A cleaning composition having a compound of the following general formula:

#R—[O-(AO)n]m—Z  (I)

#where R is a hydrophobe, AO is a hydrophile where A is a hydrocarbon group, Z is a noionic or anionic capping group, n is an integer of from 1 to 200, and m is an integer of from 1 to 3 and where the compound is included in the cleaning composition in a sufficient amount to remove built-up residue and scum from a substrate. Preferably n is an integer of from 4 to 80, and m is preferably an integer of 1.