ScCO_2-based Processes In Semiconductor Manufacturing: Why Did It Fail?

摘要

During the first half of this decade, almost everyone involved in semiconductor manufacturing research assumed that some -lab-scale proven- supercritical CO_2-based processes could offer significant improvements over some specific, existing IC processing steps. However, if one tries to implement these processes in bigger (full wafer scale) reactors, and in a high demanding, ultra clean (IC manufacturing compatible) processing environment, a number of serious issues are encountered. Hardware-related problems, as well as process-related problems like lack of reproducibility, uncontrollable background contamination, material compatibility issues, and within-wafer inhomogeneities are the mayor hurdles to be taken in order to be accepted in standard, high volume IC manufacturing. As a result of this, almost every IC- and processing tool manufacturer world-wide, stopped working on developing scCO_2-based processes.