FOUP cleaning - FOSB transportation: a challenge for manufacturing on 300 mm wafers

With the advent of full minienvironment technology in mass production, FOUP (front opening unified pod) and FOSB (front opening shipping box) become critical points in semiconductor manufacturing. Cleaning of FOUPs and transportation effects seem to have a major influence on the quality of the interior of such minienvironments. Cleanability of FOUPs was investigated in this study. Different components of FOUPs were analyzed individually and different cleaning tools were used for cleaning the FOUPs. A special procedure revealed critical parts in the architecture of the FOUPs and in the performance of the cleaning tools. Preliminary transportation experiments point towards electrostatic effects during shipping of wafers.