Back to results
US 7,270,130 B2Granted
Semiconductor device cleaning employing heterogeneous nucleation for controlled cavitation
AssigneesInfineon Technologies AG, International Business Machines Corporation
InventorsRavikumar Ramachandran, David Lee Rath
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention provides a method for cleaning semiconductor devices through heterogeneous nucleation of cavitation bubbles. Heterogeneous nucleation is performed by applying sonic energy to a cleaning solution and a phase material in order to remove unwanted particles from semiconductor devices. A surfactant may be added to the phase material and the cleaning solution.
Claims24
A method of cleaning a semiconductor device, comprising:
- applying a cleaning solution to a surface of the semiconductor device;
- introducing an immiscible or partly immiscible additive into the cleaning solution to form heterogeneous nucleation sites in said cleaning solution;
- forming an emulsion with the cleaning solution and the additive;
- applying sonic waves to the emulsion to induce cavitation, whereby an increased number of bubbles are formed on the surface of the semiconductor device to facilitate particle removal from the surface thereof as a result of said heterogeneous nucleation sites in said cleaning solution.
1 more element
A method of cleaning a semiconductor device, comprising:
- applying a cleaning solution to the semiconductor device;
- introducing an immiscible or partially immiscible phase material into the cleaning solution to form heterogeneous nucleation sites in said cleaning solution;
- and
- applying sonic waves to the cleaning solution and the phase material to form bubbles at said heterogeneous nucleation sites in order to remove particles from the semiconductor device.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.