Physical Wet Cleaning Technology for Semiconductor Devices

In the semiconductor device manufacturing process, wet cleaning is an important process that determines product yield. In this paper, spray cleaning in the wet process of semiconductor device manufacturing is described from the perspective of macroscopic fluid dynamics. When micrometer-order particles adhere to the substrate, the van der Waals force, as discussed in DLVO theory, is dominant. When these particles are removed by spraying, the fluid drag force on the particles is a major factor. In addition, in semiconductor device cleaning, it is not enough to simply increase the fluid drag; as a trade-off, increasing the fluid drag also increases the probability of pattern collapse and electrostatic damage. Thus, as semiconductor device miniaturization progresses, cleaning methods with even higher selectivity are needed.