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US 5,551,986 AGranted
Mechanical scrubbing for particle removal
AssigneeTaxas Instruments Incorporated
InventorManoj K. Jain
Life of this patent
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AssigneeTaxas Instruments Incorporated
InventorManoj K. Jain
Estimating the term…
A method and apparatus for removing particulate contaminants from a semiconductor wafer are disclosed. A wafer 10 is held in a wafer holder 12 at cleaning station 14. Cleaning station 14 has a rinse fluid supply system 18 which supplies, e.g. deionized water, to the wafer surface during particle removal. A cleaning pad 20 is mounted on a platen 22, substantially in the plane of wafer 10. Platen 22 is coupled to a drive mechanism 24, which may for example be an electric motor, and drive mechanism 24 is coupled to station 14 by an engagement mechanism 26 which provides vertical displacement to engage pad 20 and wafer 10 for particle removal, and also provides a controlled pad contact pressure during particle removal. In operation, rinse fluid from 18 is supplied to slowly rotating wafer 10, while pad 20 is rotated, preferably at 200 to 600 rpm, and contacted with wafer 10. High pad speed appears to be particularly beneficial to cleaning, with pad contact pressure and contact time apparently being secondary effects which at least decrease wafer-to-wafer variances in the cleaning process.
A method for removing particulate contaminants from a semiconductor wafer surface, said method comprising the overlapping steps of:
A method for removing particulate contaminants from a semiconductor wafer surface using a substantially circular cleaning pad, said method comprising supplying a rinse fluid to at least one of said wafer surface and said cleaning pad and contacting said wafer surface and said cleaning pad with a contact pressure greater than 1 lb/in.sup.2, while rotating said cleaning pad at a rotational velocity sufficient to effect a centripetal acceleration of at least 80 ft/sec.sup.2 on at least one portion of said pad contacting said wafer surface.
A method for removing particulate contaminants from a semiconductor wafer surface using a substantially planar cleaning pad, for use after chemical-mechanical polishing said surface, said method comprising the steps of:
A method for removing particulate contaminants from a semiconductor wafer surface, said method comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.