Optimizing wafer rinsing processes to conserve DI water

摘要

As the increasing demand for high-performance integrated circuits has led to more-complex device architectures, high packing densities, large die sizes, and larger wafers, there has been an accompanying need for larger volumes of chemicals and deionized (DI) water for use in the cleaning and other surface preparation steps that are critical to the semiconductor manufacturing process flow. These cleaning and rinsing steps are required to provide the necessary wafer surface quality and to isolate each process step from the others. In some fabs the DI water used for rinsing during front-end-of-line (FEOL) surface preparation (through the first contact cut) and back-end-of-line processing can total 20 million gallons or more per month.