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Published: 2003

Total Pages: 320

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The issues addressed by the Sixth International Symposium on the Ultra Clean Processing of Silicon Surfaces included all aspects of ultra-clean Si-technology, cleaning and contamination control in both front-end-of-line (FEOL) and back-end-of-line (BEOL) processing. This covered studies of Si-surface chemistry and topography and its relationship to device performance and process yield, cleaning in relationship to new gate stacks, cleaning at the interconnect level, resist stripping and polymer removal, cleaning and contamination control of various new materials, wafer backside cleaning and cleaning following Chemical-Mechanical-Polishing (CMP). Judging from the large number of papers dealing with wet cleaning processes, it is clear that this is still the dominant cleaning technology at the moment. Various papers discussed simplified cleaning by the use of chelating additives, and single-wafer wet cleaning; which is expected to replace the more standard multi-step batch-type cleaning systems, in various applications, in the future. Several contributions dealt with new materials introduced into current process research and development: such as Cu, and especially (porous) low-k material, as well as high-k and metal gate stacks. Substantial progress had also been made in understanding the effects of megasonics, and in the area of cleaning following Chemical-Mechanical Polishing (CMP). Last, but not least, an encouraging number of contributions were presented on the relatively new topic of supercritical CO2 cleaning. Altogether, the 76 contributions presented at the symposium represent a timely and authoritative assessment of the state-of-the-art of this very interesting and essential field.