Measurement of nanoparticles and their precursors

As AMCs originate from a wide variety of sources – including process chemicals, refrigerants, cleaning solvents, construction materials, and personnel - it is critical that any monitoring solution is capable of detecting a robust variety of AMCs. Technologies such as GC, IC, and CRDS are currently limited to a subset of AMC at detection limits which are no longer suitable for the ever-shrinking technology nodes produced in modern FABs because they are unable to provide fast measurements, guarantee a comprehensive monitoring of the AMCs including unknowns, and/or are not sensitive enough to trace contaminants at relevant levels. In this work, the Vocus ABC monitor is presented as a recent technological solution that enables custom lists of compounds to be monitored with a sensitivity that reaches single digit parts-per-trillion volume concentration.

Nanoparticles represent one of the most critical contaminations in ultrapure supplies for semiconductor fabrication addressing ultrapure water (UPW), gasses and chemicals as well as materials of construction decreasing yield on the wafer. Along the UPW generation process, there are sources (e.g. materials) and sinks (e.g. filter) for nanoparticles. As final barrier for nanoparticles in the polishing step, ultrafilters are commonly used on UPW plants. However, the performance of the ultrafilters in the field in terms of removal performance for particles need to be investigated to come up with pro-active approaches for particle removal. Especially for UPW, there is a lack of online particle metrologies down to particle size of sub 50 nm. This study aims to give an overview on different particle metrologies to better understand the particle removal performance by ultrafilters on the market.

Critical feature sizes of modern semiconductor devices have surpassed the capabilities of traditional optical-based methods to measure particle concentrations in process chemicals and on wafers. Without adequate metrology for quantifying particle and particle precursor concentration in process chemicals, device makers face challenges correlating component failures and fabrication steps. This is especially true for organic material released by Final Polish Ion Exchange resin during a rinse cycle, which is not detected efficiently using optical methods. In this work, we describe two state-of-the-art measurement methods that can detect organic particles and particle precursors to 3 nm using Aerosolization and Threshold Particle Counting (TPC) and defects from UPW deposited on a wafer surface down to 8 nm using Surfaced Enhanced Particle Sizing (SEPS)

Airborne Molecular Contamination is a diverse field and requires many different approaches, Unlike particles, other most commonly known cleanroom contaminants, AMC's have various subclasses. Each of these subclasses, acids, basis, condensables, metallics, etc. many different analytical techniques. But, before even we reach the point of solving sources of excursion, we have to correlate defects and contaminants causing the said defects. The more obscure and infrequent the of defects are, the more difficult it is to find the source. In some cases by the time defects have manifested, the contamination has dissipated and if metrology for real-time analysis is not in place, it is near impossible to discover the root cause. This presentation uses example of such an excursion and goes through the process of "how to" find root cause of an excursion.

This presentation was given as part of the Ultrapure Micro 2021 annual conference. It was given as part of the airborne molecular contamination (AMC) and high purity gases control strand.

This presentation was given as part of the Ultrapure Micro 2021 annual conference. It was given as part of the combined track, which contained presentations on airborne molecular contamination (AMC) and high purity gases, and ultra high purity chemicals.

This presentation was given as part of the Ultrapure Micro 2021 annual conference. It was given as part of the ultrapure water strand.

This presentation was given as part of the Ultrapure Micro 2021 annual conference. It was given as part of the combined track, which contained presentations on airborne molecular contamination (AMC) and high purity gases, and ultra high purity chemicals.

This presentation was given as part of the Ultrapure Micro 2021 annual conference. It was given as part of the airborne molecular contamination (AMC) and high purity gases control strand.

This presentation was given as part of the Ultrapure Micro 2021 annual conference. It was given as part of the airborne molecular contamination (AMC) and high purity gases control strand.