A modified multi-chemicals spray cleaning process for post-CMP cleaning application

Abstract

Chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) has become widely accepted for the planarization of device interconnect structures in deep submicron semiconductor manufacturing. Attractive features of CMP include (i) global planarization and (ii) low defect and contamination level. The main challenge of cleaning is to remove the residual particles as well as the metallic contamination. In this paper, a modified post-CMP clean up-multi-chemicals spray cleaning process-is addressed in detail. This new process has been successfully applied to both oxide and tungsten CMP cleaning. The process provides comparable defect performance and excellent removal of metallic contamination to the scrubbing process which has been widely accepted in current post-CMP cleaning usage. The new clean up development strategy also contributes to their low cost of ownership (Co0) and good process flexibility as well as the minimizing cross-contamination. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A.