Damage free removal of nano-particles with dual-fluid spray nozzle cleaning

As continue shrinking of microelectronic device features, removal of nano-particle contaminations is becoming a major challenge in semiconductor manufacturing. After effective wafer cleaning, high particles removal efficiency must be achieved without substrate loss or damage to high aspect ratio structures. In this work, a novel dual-fluid spray nozzle was tested. The cleaning performance with control to normal dispense nozzle was investigated. Also, structural damage tests were carried out on poly-gate-stack line pattern wafers, and compared to the results acquired with megasonic cleaning. The results showed potential applications of such dual-fluid spray nozzle in sub-65nm devices manufacturing.