Recyclable Fluorine-Based Cleaning Solvents for Resist Removal

Abstract

The development of new functional cleaning agents is strongly required for leading-edge LSI fabrication, such as resist removal process without any damage to low-k materials. For example, as excessive acid cleaning agents would damage such materials. Consequently, a low damage cleaning technique with no collapsing fine structures is also desirable. On the other hand, the concept of recycle of cleaning agents is an urgent issue for the reduction of cleaning cost. Therefore, both cleaning ability and easy recyclable function are essential for next generation cleaning agents. Fluorine-based cleaning agents have been widely used for cleaning, rinsing and drying process in the electronics industry. Asahi Glass Corporation (AGC) has commercialized various fluorine-based cleaning agents as AC-series (Hydrofluorocarbon: HFC) and AE-series (Hydorofluoroether: HFE). Typical properties of these compounds are summarized in Table I. Here we report the application of fluorine-based cleaning agents to ArF resist removal and the evaluation of the recycles.