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US 7,052,553 B1Granted
Wet cleaning of electrostatic chucks
AssigneeLam Research Corporation
InventorsHong Shih, Tuochuan Huang, Catherine Zhou, Bruno Morel, Brian McMillin, Paul Mulgrew, Armen Avoyan
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Abstract
A non-destructive and simple method for cleaning a new or used electrostatic chuck comprises a wet cleaning process, which removes contaminants deposited on a surface of the electrostatic chuck.
Claims21
A method of cleaning an electrostatic chuck useful for plasma etching of a dielectric layer on a semiconductor substrate, the chuck including a ceramic surface on which the semiconductor substrate is supported during the etching, the method comprising the steps of:
- a) contacting at least the ceramic surface of the chuck with isopropyl alcohol;
- b) contacting at least the ceramic surface of the chuck with a dilute acidic solution comprising a hydrofluoric acid and nitric acid mixture and/or a dilute acidic solution comprising a hydrochloric acid and hydrogen peroxide mixture;
- c) contacting at least the ceramic surface of the chuck with basic solution comprising hydrogen peroxide and ammonium hydroxide;
- and
- d) subjecting the chuck to ultrasonic cleaning;
- wherein contaminants are removed from the ceramic surface of the chuck.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.