NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, GOA

CLEAN ROOMS AND RCA CLEANING

TECHNIQUES

ASWANTH G - 19ECE2003
B ASWIN KUMAR - 19ECE2004
D NIKHIL - 19ECE2005
M.TECH VLSI 1s t YEAR

March 4, 2020
 Contents
1

I Clean Rooms
I Types of Contaminants
I Types of Contaminants
I Contamination Sources
I clean room standards
I Types of clean room
I Clean Room Design
I RCA-1
I RCA-2
I Oxide clean
I Conclusion
I References

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 Introduction
2

Why Clean Rooms ?

I The device dimension are essentially shrinking, in 1st IC’s the

typical diameter was the order of uM’s.
I But now they are only few nM’s.
I So the design of clean room and minimizing contamination is
critical.

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 Types of Contaminants
3

I Particles.
I Metal ions.
I Chemicals.
I Bacteria.
I Air bone molecular contamination (AMC).

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 Contaminants
4

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 Contaminant Problems
5

I Effects device yield.

I Effects device performance.
I Effects device reliability.

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 Contamination Sources
6

I Room air.
I Fab facility.
I Clean room personal.
I Process water, chemicals.
I Static charge.
I Process equipment.

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 Bunny Suit
7

Figure: Suit worn by persons inside clean room

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 Clean rooms
8

What is clean room?

I Clean room is an area with a controlled level of contamination.

I This is usually specifies by telling the no.of particles / volume at a
specific particle size.
I High-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters are installed in the
ceiling of clean rooms to continuously filter air present inside
room.

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 Clean room
9

Figure: Clean room

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 clean room standards
10

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 ISO Classification
11

0.1 2.08
Cn = 10N ∗ [ ] (1)
D
I Cn is Maximum permitted concentration of airborne particles.
I Cn is rounded to nearest whole number.
I N is ISO classification number, shall not exceed the value of 9.
I D is the considered particle size in um.
I 0.1 is constant with dimension of um.

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 Clean Room Design
12

I Ball room design.

I Tunnel – bay concept.
I Bay chase concept.

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 Types of clean room
13

Clean rooms have evolved into two major types and they are
differentiated by their method of ventilation:
I Turbulently Ventilated Clean room.
I Unidirectional Flow Clean room.

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 Types of clean rooms
14

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 RCA-1/Standard Clean-1
15

Objective: To remove Organic particles and residues.

Contents:
I Ammonium Hydroxide (NH4 OH), Hydrogen peroxide (H2 O2 ),
De-ionized water (H2 O).

Steps:
I Add Ammonium Hydroxide, Hydrogen peroxide to Chemical tank.
I Submerge wafers in the tank and hold for 6 mins approximately
till residues are removed.

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 RCA-1/Standard Clean-1
16

Figure: silicon wafers in wafer holder.

Figure: silicon wafers submerged into chemical tank.

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 RCA-1/Standard Clean-1
17

I Remove the wafers from chemical tank and place it in another

tank containing de-ionized water to rinse off chemicals.

Figure: silicon wafers submerged into chemical tank.

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 RCA-2/Standard Clean-2
18

Objective: To remove metallic contaminants.

Contents:
I Hydrochloric Acid (HCl), Hydrogen peroxide (H2 O2 ), De-ionized
water (H2 O).

Steps:
I Add Hydrochloric acid, Hydrogen peroxide to Chemical tank.
I Submerge wafers in the tank and hold for 6 mins approximately
till metallic contaminants are removed.
I A temperature of 75o C is maintained.

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 RCA-2/Standard Clean-2
19

I Remove the wafers from chemical tank and place it in another

tank containing de-ionized water to rinse off chemicals.

Figure: silicon wafers submerged into chemical tank.

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 Oxide clean
20

Objective: To remove any oxide that may have grown on the surface
of wafers.

Contents:
I Spin rinse dryer.

Steps:
I Take Hydroflouric Acid in a chemical tank and dip the wafers for
15 seconds to remove oxide grown on the surface of wafers.
I Place wafers inside the spin rinse dryer and turn ON the rinse
dryer.
I Wafers rotate inside the spin rinse dryer with de-ionized water
sprayed on the wafers.
I Now the wafers are dried inside the dryer and oxides are
removed.
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 Oxide clean
21

Figure: silicon wafers inside spin rinse dryer.

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 Conclusion
22

I Clean Rooms and Cleaning techniques are essential and

inevitable steps in Wafer manufacture to get perfect wafers.
I Due to scaling of technology the yield from wafer manufacturing
depends on contamination removal or cleaning.

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 References
23

I Silicon VLSI Technology - James D.Plummer, Micheal D.Deal

and Peter B.Griffin.
I W. Kern, "The Evolution of Silicon-Wafer Cleaning Technology",
Journal of the Electrochemical Society, vol. 137, p. 1887, 1990.
I NPTEL course on Electronic materials, devices and fabrication
by Prof S. Parasuraman, IIT Madras.

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 24

Thank You !

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