Optimization of approach for metal contamination reduction

The importance of metal contamination in semiconductor processing and the ultimate yield effects has long been discussed in literature, the ITRS, and most importantly in the fab. Analysis methods including TXRF, VPD ICP-MS, and TOF-SIMS have been used to verify that wafers are properly “clean”, In this paper, In order to further reduce the content of metal elements in the plasma etching tools, we have further optimized its detection procedure and explored the results and mechanism of different test preparation procedures on the metal contamination detection. It is worth noting that elements Analysis choice has often been chosen via an instrument that is most convenient and quickest for the fab. Thus, in this work we use an automated vapor phase decomposition (VPD) process to collect and detect the metal contamination. At the same time, in this study, the metal contamination in the plasma etching machine has been significantly reduce after optimization, the actual production process, the problem of excessive Cr element in metal contamination detection was effectively solved, and the success rate of this type of detection increased from about 50% to 98% ~ 100%.