Ellipsometoric measurement of paticle-spiked wafer surfaces

Particle attachment using inkjet printer and ellipsometric measurements

Abstract

Cleaning is an important process in the semiconductor manufacturing process. If cleaning is insufficient, contaminating particles will remain on the substrate, causing device failures. We have been studying the evaluation method for developing a new cleaning process. We are focusing on a spectroscopic ellipsometry, which can easily determine the structure of an extremely thin surface layer of sub nm even at the laboratory level, expecting application to particle detection. In this research, we tried detection of nanoparticles on the substrate by using ellipsometry, especially as a simple evaluation method in the laboratory, and proved its usefulness. An industrial inkjet printer was used for precise particle attachment.