Systems and methods for shuttered wafer cleaning
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsTsui-Wei WANG, Yung-Li TSAI, Chui-Ya PENG
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In an embodiment, a system includes: a wafer support configured to secure a wafer; a nozzle configured to dispense a liquid or a gas on the wafer when the nozzle is in an active state of dispensing; a shutter configured to catch the liquid from the nozzle when the shutter is in a first position below the nozzle; and a shutter actuator configured to: move the shutter to the first position in response to the nozzle not being in an inactive state; move the shutter to a second position away from the first position in response to the nozzle being in the active state.
Claims20
A method, comprising:
- providing a nozzle above a wafer, wherein the nozzle is configured to dispense a liquid or a gas onto the wafer;
- moving a shutter to a first position away from the nozzle when the nozzle is dispensing the liquid or the gas onto the wafer;
- performing a cleaning of the wafer by dispensing the liquid or the gas;
- and
- moving the shutter from the first position to a second position below the nozzle upon completion of the cleaning so as to catch the liquid from the nozzle.
A method, comprising:
- providing a nozzle above a wafer, wherein the nozzle is configured to dispense a liquid and a gas onto the wafer;
- moving a shutter to a first position away from the nozzle when the nozzle is dispensing the liquid onto the wafer;
- performing a liquid cleaning of the wafer by dispensing the liquid;
- moving the shutter from the first position to a second position below the nozzle so as to catch the liquid from the nozzle;
- and
- performing a gas cleaning of the wafer by dispensing the gas.
A system, comprising:
- a nozzle configured to dispense a liquid or a gas onto a wafer;
- a shutter configured to catch the liquid from the nozzle when the shutter is below the nozzle;
- and
- a controller configured to cause the system to:
- move the shutter to a first position away from the nozzle when the nozzle is dispensing the liquid or the gas onto the wafer;
- perform a cleaning of the wafer by dispensing the liquid or the gas;
- and
- move the shutter from the first position to a second position below the nozzle upon completion of the cleaning.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.