Effects of UV/O3 and SC1 Steps for the HF Last Silicon Wafer Cleaning

Abstract

ABSTRACTAs the size of integrated circuit is scaled down, the importance of Si wafer cleaning has been emphasized. Especially, in the ULSI level device, the cleaning has a great influence on device yields and reliabilities. In this study, we investigate the effects of UV/03 and SCI steps in the HF last cleaning procedures. The UV/O3 and SCI cleaning steps are known to remove the organic contaminants. However, the combination of UV/O3 cleaning step with HF wet chemical solution to remove the metallic impurities has not been studied extensively. We have applied the UV/O3 and SCI steps in the middle of the HF last cleaning procedures and have analyzed Si substrates with TXRF, AFM, I-V, etc. The cleaning splits we applied consist with 4 different types, split 1 (piranha + HF), split 2 (piranha + UV/O3 + HF), split 3 (piranha + SC1 + HF) and split 4 (piranha + UV/O3 + HF repeated 3 times). The contents of metallic impurities were measured with using TXRF and splits 2 and 4 showed low average values of metallic contents. The surface morphologies after each cleaning examined with AFM and the split 3 exhibited rough surface. The electric properties were measured after forming a MOS capacitor with oxide thickness of 250Å. The high leakage current and low breakdown voltage were observed at split 3.