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Silicon Wafer Cleaning: A Fundamental and Critical Step in Semiconductor

Fabrication Process

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 International Journal of
Applied Nanotechnology
eISSN: 2455-8524 (Online)
Vol. 5: Issue 1
www.journalspub.com

Silicon Wafer Cleaning: A Fundamental and Critical Step in

Semiconductor Fabrication Process
Binoy Bera
1
Department of computer science and engineering, West Bengal University of Technology,
Kolkata – 700064, India

ABSTRACT
Silicon is the most interesting and useful semiconductor material in fabrication of numerous
semiconductor devices. In semiconductor device fabrication, the various processing steps fall
into four general categories i.e. deposition, removal, patterning and modification of
electrical properties. In every step, wafer cleaning is the primary and principle step for
developing semiconductor based electronic devices. Cleaning process is the removal of
chemical and particle impurities without altering or damaging the wafer surface or substrate.
Here in this paper, silicon wafer cleaning procedures has been reviewed in sort. Some basic
concepts about clean room were also described in brief.

Keywords: Semiconductor fabrication, silicon wafer, wafer cleaning, clean room.

*Corresponding Author: berabinoy17@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION grows, coats, otherwise transfers a material

Semiconductor is a solid substance that
has an electrical conductivity between that
of an insulator and conductor. The
defining property of a semiconductor
material is that it can be doped with
impurities that alter its electronic
properties in a controllable way. silicon is
most popular semiconductor material used
in developing microelectronics devices.
Semiconductor device fabrication is the
process used to create the integrated
circuits that are present in everyday
electrical and electronic devices. In
semiconductor device fabrication, the
various processing steps fall into four
general categories such as deposition,
removal, patterning and modification of
electrical properties. Deposition is any
process like physical vapour deposition
and chemical vapour deposition that
onto the wafer. Removal is any process
like etching and chemical mechanical
planarization (CMP) that removes material
from wafer. Patterning is about shaping or
altering of deposited materials and is
generally referred to as lithography.
Finally, modification of electrical
properties is done by doping impurities in
semiconductor material. The objective of
the wafer cleaning process [1-10] is the
removal of chemical and particle
impurities without altering or damaging
the wafer surface or substrate (fig. 1).
Wafer cleaning is done for pre diffusion
clean means which creates a surface that is
free from metallic, particulate and organic
contaminants, metallic ion removal clean
i.e. remove metallic ion which can have
detrimental effect on semiconductor [11-
17] device operation, particle removal

IJAN (2019) 8-13 © JournalsPub 2019. All Rights Reserved Page 8

Silicon Wafer Cleaning: A Fundamental and Critical Step
clean that means in which particle removal
from surface using chemical or mechanical
scrubbing using megasonic cleaning and
post etch clean which remove photo resist
and polymers left after etching process.
Here in this paper, for silicon wafer
cleaning, different procedures such as
RCA (radio corporation of America)
cleaning, SC (standard cleaning) cleaning,
ohmi cleaning, megasonic cleaning,
ultrasonic cleaning has been discussed in
brief.
SILICON WAFER CLEANING
PROCEDURES
RCA cleaning
RCA clean is “standard process” used to
remove organics, heavy metals and alkali
ions from silicon wafer. Here ultrasonic
agitation is used to dislodge particles.
RCA is stands for Radio Corporation of
America which now makes TV, stereos
etc. In figure 2, RCA cleaning method is
discussed. In first step, sulfuric acid and
hydrogen peroxide is taken in the ratio of
1:1 - 1:4. The wafer is kept immersed in
that solutions for 10 minutes with
temperature of 100-1500C. This process is
also referred as pirhana cleaning. After
that the wafer is dipped for 1 minute in a
hydrofluoric acid (HF) solutions where
ratio of HF and H2O is 1:10. Finally the
wafer is rinsed with de-ionized water for
some fixed time at room temperature. The
other two process i.e. SC-1 and SC-2
method is also included in RCA cleaning
process. In every step, the wafer is rinsed
with de-ionized water to clean it properly.
Standard cleaning
Standard cleaning is consisting of two
steps i.e. SC-1 and SC-2. In SC-1 method,
ammonium hydroxide (28%), hydrogen
peroxide (30%) and water are taken in the
ratio of 1:1:5 with temperature of 70-800C.
The silicon wafer is kept immersed in this
IJAN (2019) 8-13 © JournalsPub 2019. All Rights Reserved
Binoy Bera
solution for 10 minutes and a high pH is
maintained. This methods oxidize organic
contamination (form carbon di-oxide,
water etc ) and form complex such as
Cu(NH3)4+2 with metals (Au, Ag, Cu, Ni,
Zn, Cd, Co, Cr). In this process, Slowly,
native oxide is dissolving and grow back
new oxide, which removes particles on
oxide. NH4OH is used less because it
etches Si and makes its surface rough. In
SC-2 method, hydrochloric acid (73%),
hydrogen peroxide (73%) and water is
taken in the ratio of 1:1:6 with temperature
of 70-800C. The silicon wafer is kept
immersed in this solution for 10 minutes
and a low pH is maintained. This method
is used to remove alkali ions and cations
like Al+3, Fe+3 and Mg+2 that form NH4OH
insoluble hydroxide is in basic solutions
like SC-1. These metals are precipitate
onto wafer surface in the SC-1 solution,
while they form soluble complexes in SC-
2 solution. SC-2 is also complete the
removal of metallic contaminates such as
Au that may not have been completely
removed by SC-1 step.
Ohmi cleaning
Ohmi cleaning is happened in fewer steps
and low temperature condition. Detail
steps of ohmi cleaning process is described
in figure 3.
Megasonic and Ultrasonic cleaning
In megasonic cleaning process,
Mechanical agitation of cleaning fluid by
high-frequency vibrations (between 20 and
45 kHz) are used to cause cavitation -
formation of low-pressure vapor bubbles
that scrub the surface. Higher frequencies
(>45kHz) form smaller bubbles on the
surface of silicon wafer, thus it is less
effective. However, megasonic (1MHz)
cleaning is also found effective in particle
removal. These two processes are highly
effective for removing surface
contaminants from silicon wafer.
Page 9
 International Journal of Applied Nanotechnology
eISSN: 2455-8524 (Online)
Vol. 5: Issue 1
www.journalspub.com

Fig. 1. Different types of contaminants, their origin and effects on silicon wafer.

Chemicals Conditions Results

H2SO4/H 2O2 120 - 150ÞC Strips organics

1:1 to 4:1 10 min especially photoresist

HF/H 2O Room T Strips chemical

1:10 to 1:50 1 min oxide

DI H 2O Rinse Room T

NH4OH/H 2O2/H 2O 80 - 90ÞC Strips organics,

1:1:5 to 0.05:1:5 10 min metals and particles
SC-1

DI H 2O Rinse Room T

HCl/H 2O2/H 2O 80 - 90ÞC Strips alkali ions

1:1:6 10 min and metals
SC-2

DI H 2O Rinse Room T
Fig. 2. Detail process of RCA cleaning.

IJAN (2019) 8-13 © JournalsPub 2019. All Rights Reserved Page 10

Silicon Wafer Cleaning: A Fundamental and Critical Step Binoy Bera

Chemicals Conditions Results

Fig. 3. Detail steps involved in ohmi cleaning process.

Fig. 4. ISO equivalent clean room classes.

IJAN (2019) 8-13 © JournalsPub 2019. All Rights Reserved Page 11

 International Journal of Applied Nanotechnology
Fig. 5. FED STD 209E equivalent clean room classes.
Clean Room
Clean room is a place where all these
cleaning process happened and where
provisions are made to reduce particulate
contamination. All the parameters such as
temperature, humidity and pressure are
controlled in a clean room by using some
key components i.e. high efficiency
particulate air (HEPA) filter and ultra-low
particulate air (ULPA) filter. Clean room
is classified according to two standards
(fig. 4-5) i.e. ISO equivalent and FED
STD 209E equivalent. This classification
is done according to the number of
particles permitted per volume of air.
CONCLUSION
Contaminants [18-19] happens during the
microelectronics integrated circuit
fabrication process. Cleaning is one of the
most desired process to remove
contaminants from wafer. All the cleaning
process happened in a clean room.
Particles are largely removed by ultrasonic
agitation during cleaning.Organics
(photoresist) are removed in O2 plasma or
in sulfuric acid (H2SO4)/hydrogen
peroxide (H2O2) solutions which is named
as piranha cleaning. The “RCA clean” is
used to remove metals and any remaining
IJAN (2019) 8-13 © JournalsPub 2019. All Rights Reserved
eISSN: 2455-8524 (Online)
Vol. 5: Issue 1
www.journalspub.com
organics present in the silicon wafer.
Cleaning is comprising roughly one fourth
(1/4) of any integrated circuit fabrication
process. Here in this paper, some standard
clean room classifications [20] were also
described in brief.
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Cite this Article: Binoy Bera. Silicon Wafer Cleaning: A Fundamental
and Critical Step in Semiconductor Fabrication Process. International
Journal of Applied Nanotechnology. 2019; 5 (1): 8–13p.
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Binoy Bera
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