Apparatus and system for cleaning substrate

Abstract

An upper processing head includes a topside module defined to apply a cleaning material to a top surface of a substrate and then expose the substrate to a topside rinsing meniscus. The topside module is defined to flow a rinsing material through the topside rinsing meniscus in a substantially uni-directional manner towards the cleaning material and opposite a direction of movement of the substrate. A lower processing head includes a bottomside module defined to apply a bottomside rinsing meniscus to the substrate so as to balance a force applied to the substrate by the topside rinsing meniscus. The bottomside module is defined to provide a drain channel for collecting and draining the cleaning material dispensed from the upper processing head when the substrate is not present between the upper and lower processing heads.; The upper and lower processing heads can include multiple instantiations of the topside and bottomside modules, respectively.

Description

Background technique [0001] In the fabrication of semiconductor devices, such as integrated circuits and memory cells, a series of fabrication operations are performed to define the characteristics of a semiconductor wafer ("wafer"). A wafer (or substrate) includes integrated circuit devices in the form of a multi-level structure defined on a silicon substrate. At the substrate level, transistor devices with diffusion regions are formed. At subsequent levels, interconnect metal lines are patterned and electrically connected to transistor devices to define the desired integrated circuit device. In addition, the patterned conductive layer is insulated from other conductive layers by a dielectric material. [0002] During a series of manufacturing operations, wafer surfaces are exposed to various types of contaminants. Anything present in a manufacturing operation is by its nature a potential source of contamination. For example, sources of contamination may include process g...

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Problems solved by technology

It is quite difficult to remove such small particle contamination without adversely affecting the features on the wafer

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