40% 4 Waler Fab Particulate Sources. 30 20 10 wipment Process People Weler Static. Chemical ae Handling Charge Purity Figure 6.22 Sources of particulate contamination. This anal- ysis, shown at SEMI Forecast by Dr. C. Rinn Cleavelin, Texas Instruments, revealed equipment-generated particles as the top enemy in 1985. (Courtesy of Semiconductor Equipment and Materials Institute.) Clean room Gowning Procedure + Itis very important to maintain a rigid cleanroom protocol to minimize the % yield loss due to the contamination. + Human beings emit a lot of particles, and people are also the major source of sodium, which can cause mobile ion contamination ~ people who work inside the cleanroom must wear specially designed garments, — Because people were the main contamination sources before, some fabs even limited the number of workers in the clean-room to control the contamination, + The improvement of cleanroom garments and the strict cleanroom gowning procedures have sharply reduced contamination from people working inside the cleanroom. + Proper gowning and degowning procedures are important parts of cleanroom protocol, 2Clean room Gowning Procedure + Some fabs require people to put on linen gloves before they even enter the gowning room. + The gloves are usually made of composite fibers that do not tend to attract particles. They can prevent sodium and particles on the hands from contaminating the cleanroom ‘garments (and they also make the outer-laver latex gloves a little more comfortable). + Human hair becomes positively charged via friction, which attracts negatively charged particles. Certain pressure, humidity, and temperature conditions discharge and neutralize these particles so they are no longer attracted by hairs. Clean room Gowning Procedure + As a consequence, discharged particles from hair could easily become airborne and cause contamination, + Hair covers block the emission of these particles, so they are among the first things to put on in the gowning room, and men with beards are usually required to wear a beard cover, Beards are strongly discouraged in most IC fabs. + The bottoms of shoes carry the largest amount of particles. Many fabs use sticky pads or shoe brushes to remove dirt from the shoes before putting on shoe covers. + It is very important to keep bare shoes on the entrance side of the bench and covered shoes on the other side of the bench to prevent large amounts of particles from being carried into the gowning roomGowning Sequence is Antersut ‘shoe Cover Tod’ Needed for May be needed Make sure to Check for ‘cleanest before entering Contain ALL snug ft good lasses ‘downing area air face seal . é 4 4 Face mak it Boos SatelyGlases Gloves, Bend nose Keep off floor and Putonover_-Rememberto. Pull hemof Decefora bench, tick n hood thelegoofthe puton safety _glove over snugiacial ft before zipping coverall ‘lasses overall sleeve “Taken from Clean Room Clothing > GLASS + cuass10 + class 100 + CLASS M18 + class M25 + CLASS mas + Hood + Hood + Hood Hair Cover + Hair Cover + Hair cover + Coverall + Covert + cova + tntersut + trait > Interauit (Optional) + Boots : + Boots + Facial Cover Facial Cover Gover Gloves Safety Glasses + Safety Glasses Lass 4,000 : + CLASS 100,000 CLASS M4.5 + CLASS M65 Hood, cap orHaleCover + + Froek Coveratter Frock + mocks or Footwear + Footwear ‘Boots or Footwear + Facial Gover (Optional) + Facil Cover (Optional) + Facial Cover(Optonal) + Gloves (optional) + Gloves (optional + Gloves + Satey Glasses + safety Glasses + Safety Sasso 23Gowning area of a cleanroom Sin Soke oo Four factor determine waferExample: If we expose a 200mm wafer for 1 min to an air stream under LF. at 30 ‘m/min, how many partictes will land on the wafer in a class 100 clean room Solution For a class 100, there are 3530 particles (0.5 mikron) per cibic meter. The air volume that goes over the wafer ini I minute is 30 mvmin x (0.210/2)2 x 1 min ~ 0.9424 m2 ‘The number of dust particles in the air volume is, 3530x0,9424 =3322 particles 332 parilces for class 10, 33 particles for class 1 BASIC STRUCTURE OF AN IC FAB + AnIC fab usually consists of ~ offices, facilities, storage, equipment, wafer pro-cessing, and chip testing and packaging areas. * Offices, facilities, and process materials storage are obviously not cleanrooms, + wafer processing, equipment, chip testing, and packaging take place only in the cleanroom. + Wafers must remain in the processing area, which maintains the highest class of all the cleanrooms. 25BASIC STRUCTURE OF AN IC FAB Much process equipment is installed in lower-class clean-rooms, sometimes called the gray area, which interfaces with the high-class cleanroom so that wafers can be transferred into it for processing. Chip test and packaging normally take place in an even lower-class cleanroom, since these processes involve a much larger feature size, which is much less sensitive to particle contamination. S.C. Manufacturing process Semiconductor manufacturing has many processes, which can be classified under four basic operations: ~— adding, removing, patterning, and heating. Doping, layer growth, and deposition area adding processes; etch, clean, and polishing are removing processes. Photolithography is the patterning process; and annealing, alloying, and reflow are the heating process 26Wafer processing area Wafer processing areas usually are separated into several processing bays , = they include wet bay, diffusion bay, photo bay, etch bay, implant bay, thin film bay, and CMP bay. Process engineers, process technicians, and production operators work mainly in the process areas. Process support engineers employed by equipment manufacturers also work mainly m this area during tool start-ups and when process troubleshooting after something has gone wrong. Wafer processing area Thin Film growth, op. and for CMP Ey Photolithography oe Sacaenes ———— 4 Biching Ton Implantation r + PR Supping PR Stripping RTA o Diffusion 27Wet Bay + Wet bay is the place where wet processes take place, — Photoresist stripping, wet etching, and wet chemical cleaning are the most common processes in wet bay. = Corrosive chemicals and strong oxidizers such as hydrofluoric acid (GF), hydrochloric acid (HCD, sulfuric acid (H2SO4), nitric acid (TINGS), phosphoric acid (HTO4), and hydrogen peroxide (H202) are commonly used inthis area. ~ Large amounts of high-purity defonized (D}) water are used to rinse wafers alter the wet processes. — Most acids used in wet bay are corrosive; nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide are strong oxidizers. = Wet bays always have shower stations and eyewashers nearby in ‘case of accidental contact such as chemical spillage. Wet Bay + Wet processes, usually requiring three steps: process, rinse, and dry + Wet process tools are typically batch processors, which can handle one or more cassettes of 25 wafers at once. + Fabs that do not have a separate wet bay put wet chemical stations beside the oxidation and LPCVD tools, since these processes require wet clean beforehand, 28Diffusion bay + The diffusion bay is where thermal processes are performed. processes can be adding processes, such as oxidation, LPCVD, and difon doping, or heating processes, such as postimplantation annealing, ant drive-in, annoy annealing, or dielectric reflow. High-temperature furnaces in the diffusion bay perform oxidation, LPCVD, diffusion/ drive-in esses, and annealing processes. Some fabs also have epitaxy reactors in diffusion bay. Diffusion bay ‘The furnaces are batch process tools capable of processing more than 100 wafers at the same time. Due to the smaller footprint and better contamination control, vertical furnaces are replacing horizontal furnaces in advanced IC fabs. Some fabs also have cluster tools with single- wafer chambers for hightemperature polysilicon and silicon nitride CVD and silicide annealing processes. 29The Photo Bay The photolithography process is one of the most important in IC fabrication. ~ It transfers the designed pattern from the mask to the photoresist on wafer surface. Integrated track-stepper systems, ~ (photoresist coating, baking, alignment and exposure, and photoresist development process steps) are housed in photo bay. Track-stepper integrated system Pep Chamber Spin Coster Ch Paes Wate i blee-@-e6L secon | rt | ‘ci Ptes Developer wate Moria! Movement 30The Etch Bay + In an etch bay, the wafers are etched with the pattern defined by the photoresist, which permanently transfers the design to the wafer surface. + Etch is a removing process; material on the wafer surface are selectively removed by a chemical or physical process Floor plan: semicon. Fab. Equipment Areas Process Bays eel Sioiee As Sliding Doors Gowning Arca 31Clean Room Designs mh ON niuRes rom ith ois fn oie sdorye comeing the stspely lon a te op and ater emu he en Clean Room DesignsClean Room Dos and Don’ts + Do: = change gloves whenever dirty or tom — use a fresh pair of gloves whenever handling wafers — wipe down wafer handling areas with isopropanol = use clean room paper and dust-free ball point pens = remove all rings and bracelets from fingers and wrists ~ use special lint-free paper and pens or markers + Don’t: = touch your face or skin with gloves = touch oily machinery or hot elements — lean on equipment ~ wear cosmetics, powders, or colognes = use normal paper and pencils DEIONZATION + Water pure enough to drink is not pure enough to be used in clean room ‘+ The most prominent of the contaminants found in water are in the formed of ionized particles and gases + Ionized impurities are categorized into two groups. = Cation (carry a positive charge) such as sodium(Nat), calsium(Cat), and magnesium (Mg++) = Anion ( carry a negative charge) ~ chloride(Cl}, sulfates(SO4~), and biearbonates (HCO3-) + How to remove the contaminants = Through a series of chemical reaction + Take place as the water passes through Ton exchange resin 33DEIONZATION Deionisation is actually the reverse exchange of unwanted ions. from liquid phase(water) for wanted ions froim the solid phases(ion exchange resin) = These ion exchange resins can be specific forthe removal of one particular ion or one group of on, or removing anything and everything that is charged = Cation resin is used to remove positively charged ions, and anion resin isto remove negatively charged fons. DEIONIZATION First stage filter is activated carbon used to separate chlorine, organic materilas and bigger particles. Second stage filter is to filter particles with sizes of >10 pm . Dissolved materials in water are separated by third stage filter through reverse osmosis(RO). Than water is deionized through fourth filter. For some system, uv is used control bacteria. Finally water passes through membrane to separate particles > 0,22 um. 34DEIONZATION ‘Water quality is upgraded through DI polis her and finally through 4 ym filter to separate residual from ion exchange and polisher High purity water can not be stored to long because it will be contaminated by particles or microorganism from container. Water exposed to air can absorbed CO, molecules or other gases Therefore, pure water must be used direct immediately after purification process. DI Water System a> onl pees lpaarin) ie vee01 35Resistivity vs concentration of dissolved solids Resistivity Dissolved Ohms-om Solids (ppm) 25°C 18,000,000 0.0277 15,000,000 0.0333 10,000,000 0.0500 1,000,000 0.500 100,000 5.00 10,000 $0.00 ULTRASONIC CLEANING Particles strick on the surface of sample can be removed by transfering momentum to particles. The smaller the particles more difficult to be removed and require higher momentum, Ultrasonic wave in liquid will cause compression and expansion in sinusidal form. Sound wave with frequency of > 16 kHz have high energy compared to audible sound wave. 3637