JP2003188135A - Substrate cleaning apparatus and method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a substrate cleaning apparatus and a substrate cleaning method in which the semiconductor wafers may be cleaned more reliably in comparison with the prior art when it is applied particularly to the substrate cleaning method of a spray system to clean the substrate by spraying chemical solution to the substrate. <P>SOLUTION: The plashing angle of chemical solution is set in the range of 100° to 120° within the plane direction of a semiconductor wafer 13. Moreover, the exhaust pressure of the chemical solution is set to 2 [kg/cm<SP>2</SP>] or more. Moreover, when the number of nozzles 25 is rather small, the splashing angle is set within the range of 100° to 120° even in the arrangement direction of nozzle 25. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a substrate cleaning apparatus and a substrate cleaning method, and is particularly applicable to a spray type substrate cleaning apparatus for spraying a chemical solution onto a substrate to clean the substrate. The present invention further sets the spray angle of the chemical liquid in the in-plane direction of the semiconductor wafer within the range of 100 to 120 degrees, and the discharge pressure of the chemical liquid to 2 [kg / cm ² ] or more. When the number of nozzles is small, the scattering angle is 100 even in the nozzle arrangement direction.
By setting the range to 120 degrees, it becomes possible to more reliably clean the semiconductor wafer as compared with the conventional case.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a semiconductor manufacturing process, a wiring pattern or the like is formed by dry etching or wet etching. That is, FIG.
FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view showing a semiconductor wafer related to a process of forming a wiring pattern of this type.

In this type of process, after forming an active element such as a transistor in the semiconductor substrate 1, a contact hole is formed and a predetermined underlayer 2, a metal material layer 3 and the like are sequentially deposited to form a wiring material layer 4. Are formed (FIG. 5 (A)). Here, as the metal material forming the metal material layer 3, various metal materials mainly containing aluminum, copper, tungsten, etc. are appropriately selected and applied.

Further, in this type of process, a photoresist 5 is subsequently applied by spin coating, and then the photoresist 5 is removed by photolithography so that a portion where the wiring material layer 4 is removed is exposed (see FIG. )),
For example, when a metal material containing aluminum as a main component is applied as the wiring material, dry etching is performed with a chlorine-based gas or a fluorine-based gas to remove the excess wiring material layer 4 to form the wiring pattern 7. Form (Fig. 5
(C)).

When the semiconductor substrate is etched in this manner, the reaction products 6 of the etching due to the chlorine-based compound, the fluorine-based compound, etc. remain on the semiconductor substrate, and if these residues are left, the wiring pattern 7 is not formed. Corrosion may cause wire breakage. In addition, corrosive substances may be separated from the wiring patterns and short-circuit between the wiring patterns 7, which significantly reduces reliability and further reduces yield. As a result, in this type of process, the reaction product 6 is removed by the subsequent cleaning process (FIG. 5D), and then the interlayer insulating film 8 and the like are formed (FIG. 5 ( E)).

As a cleaning method applied to this semiconductor manufacturing process, a dip method in which a semiconductor wafer itself is immersed in a cleaning chemical solution for cleaning, or a method in which wafers are cleaned one by one with a cleaning chemical solution by spin coating or the like Leaf type, there is a batch type spray method, etc., in which a plurality of wafers are collectively sprayed with a cleaning chemical solution to wash the plurality of wafers by batch processing.From the viewpoint of safety of the cleaning solution, single wafer type, batch The expression spray method is mainly used.

FIG. 6 is a sectional view showing a semiconductor cleaning apparatus applied to the batch spray method among these methods. In this cleaning device 11, the semiconductor wafer 13
A plurality of cassette holders are arranged inside the chamber 12, which is the cleaning container. As a result, the cleaning device 11
In this method, after storing a predetermined number of semiconductor wafers in a cassette and holding the cassette in a cassette holder, a plurality of semiconductor wafers 13 can be stored in the chamber 12. In the cleaning device 11, the semiconductor wafer is housed in the chamber 12 in this manner, and the semiconductor wafer 13 is held perpendicularly in this cross section with a predetermined interval by the cassette holder. There is.

In the cleaning device 11, the chamber 12
A pipe 14 for introducing a chemical liquid is provided above the pipe, and a chemical liquid for cleaning is configured to be sprayed onto the semiconductor wafer 13 held by the cassette holder from a nozzle 15 arranged in the pipe 14 and arranged on the back side. The holding mechanism for these cassette holders can be rotated by the drive mechanism by the motor 16.

In the cleaning step, the cleaning device 11 sprays a cleaning chemical onto the semiconductor wafer 13 while the motor 16 is driven to rotate the holding mechanism of the cassette holder, thereby cleaning the semiconductor wafer 13 without leakage. It is designed to spray a medicinal solution. For such a chemical solution, for example, an organic stripping solution is applied. Further, after cleaning with a chemical solution, water is similarly sprayed and rinsed, and then the motor 16 is driven at a high speed to dry by shaking off. In this drying step, nitrogen gas heated to a predetermined temperature may be introduced, and a small amount of isopropyl alcohol may be added to water for washing to improve the drying efficiency.

[0010]

By the way, there are cases where the reaction product due to etching cannot be completely removed even by cleaning with such a cleaning device. In such a case, as described above, the wiring pattern is corroded, and the corroded matter is peeled off from the substrate, which significantly lowers the reliability.

The present invention has been made in consideration of the above points, and it is an object of the present invention to propose a substrate cleaning apparatus and a substrate cleaning method capable of cleaning semiconductor wafers more reliably than ever before.

[0012]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the invention of claim 1 is applied to a substrate cleaning apparatus, and the spray angle of the chemical in the in-plane direction of the semiconductor wafer is in the range of 100 to 120 degrees. To be set.

According to the second aspect of the invention, the invention is applied to a substrate cleaning apparatus, and the discharge pressure of the chemical liquid is 2 [kg / cm ² ].
Set so that it is above.

According to the invention of claim 3, the invention is applied to a substrate cleaning apparatus, and the nozzles are sequentially formed in the continuous direction of the semiconductor wafer by the number of 1/2 or less of the number of semiconductor wafers. The spray angle of the chemical solution at 10
The range is set to 0 to 120 degrees.

Further, in the invention of claim 4, the invention is applied to the substrate cleaning method, and the scattering angle of the chemical liquid from the nozzle in the in-plane direction of the semiconductor wafer is set in the range of 100 to 120 degrees.

Further, according to the invention of claim 5, the method is applied to a substrate cleaning method, and the discharge pressure of the chemical liquid from the nozzle is 2 [k].
g / cm ² ] or more.

Further, according to the invention of claim 6, the nozzle is applied to 1/2 of the number of semiconductor wafers by applying to the substrate cleaning method.
When the following numbers are sequentially formed in the continuous direction of the semiconductor wafer, the spray angle of the chemical liquid from the nozzles in the nozzle arrangement direction is set in the range of 100 to 120 degrees.

According to the structure of claim 1, the invention is applied to the substrate cleaning apparatus, and the scattering angle of the chemical solution in the in-plane direction of the semiconductor wafer is set to be in the range of 100 to 120 degrees. In the cleaning device, the cleaning liquid can be sufficiently sprayed onto the semiconductor wafer practically without leakage, and the semiconductor wafer can be reliably cleaned as compared with the conventional case.

According to the second aspect of the invention, the chemical solution is sprayed with sufficient pressure by applying the chemical solution to the substrate cleaning apparatus and setting the discharge pressure of the chemical solution to 2 [kg / cm ² ] or more. As a result, the semiconductor wafer can be efficiently cleaned, and as a result, the semiconductor wafer can be cleaned more reliably than ever before.

According to the third aspect of the invention, when applied to the substrate cleaning apparatus, the nozzles are sequentially formed in the continuous direction of the semiconductor wafer by the number of 1/2 or less of the number of the semiconductor wafers, and the nozzles are arranged. The spray angle of the chemical solution in the direction is 10
By setting it in the range of 0 to 120 degrees,
Even if the number of nozzles is small, in various cleaning devices,
In practical use, the cleaning liquid can be sprayed onto the semiconductor wafer without leakage, and the semiconductor wafer can be reliably cleaned as compared with the conventional case.

According to the fourth, fifth and sixth aspects, it is possible to provide a substrate cleaning method capable of cleaning a semiconductor wafer more reliably than ever before.

[0022]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings as appropriate.

FIG. 1 is a plan view for explaining a cleaning device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a sectional view thereof. This cleaning device 21 is the same as the cleaning device 11 of FIG. 6 except that the peripheral configuration of the nozzle 25 is different, so that in FIG. 6, the different structure is shown with parenthesized symbols, A duplicate description will be omitted.

That is, in the cleaning device 21, a plurality of semiconductor wafers 13 are housed in the chamber 12 and held in parallel, and the semiconductor wafer 13 is cleaned from the nozzles 25 arranged above the semiconductor wafers 13. Spray the drug solution. In this cleaning device 21, the nozzle 25 is
The semiconductor wafers 13 are sequentially formed in a continuous direction, the number of which is set to be substantially equal to the number of semiconductor wafers 13,
It is arranged above each semiconductor wafer 13.

The nozzle 25 is provided under the nozzle 25 so that when the semiconductor wafer 13 is held at a position closest to the nozzle 25, the chemical liquid, water, etc. can be sprayed onto the semiconductor wafer 13 without leakage. 25 is formed.

Specifically, in this embodiment, the nozzle 25 is formed in the in-plane direction of the semiconductor wafer 13 so that the spray angle .theta.1 of the chemical solution within this range is 100 to 120 degrees (FIG. 1). ). In practice, this range θ
1 needs to be 90 degrees or more, and can be set to 100 to 120 degrees to effectively remove the reaction product due to etching under conditions such as discharge pressure described later.

Also in the arrangement direction of the nozzles 25, the nozzles 25 are formed so that the spray angle θ2 of the chemical solution, which is within this range, is 100 to 120 degrees (FIG. 2). With respect to the arrangement direction of the nozzles 25, when the number of nozzles 25 and the number of semiconductor wafers 13 that can be arranged are equal to or more than each other, even if the angle is smaller than the scattering angle according to the present embodiment, the cleaning is performed sufficiently and reliably. be able to. However, the number of nozzles 25 is small and the semiconductor wafers 13 that can be arranged are arranged.
When the number is less than 1/2, the cleaning can be sufficiently and surely performed by setting the scattering angle θ2 to be 100 to 120 degrees as in this embodiment.
Even in this case, this range θ2 needs to be 90 degrees or more, and can be set to 100 to 120 degrees to effectively remove the reaction product due to etching under conditions such as the discharge pressure described later.

That is, FIG. 3 shows the scattering angles θ1 and θ.
2 is a chart showing the results of experiments in which 2 is variously changed,
From this experimental result, it is understood that the reaction products can be efficiently removed by setting the scattering angles θ1 and θ2 to 90 degrees or more. It is understood that when the scattering angles θ1 and θ2 are 150 degrees or more, the reaction product is left behind.

In the cleaning device 21, the nozzle 2
The discharge pressure from 5 is set to 2.0 [kg / cm ² ] or more. That is, as shown in FIG. 4, according to an experiment in which the same discharge pressure was changed variously,
It was found that the reaction product can be efficiently removed by setting the discharge pressure to 2.0 [kg / cm ² ] or more. That is, when the pressure is gradually increased, the number of residues of the reaction product gradually decreases, and the size of the residues also decreases.
It was found that it could be completely removed at 0 [kg / cm ² ].

The discharge pressure is preferably as high as possible so that the semiconductor wafer can be surely cleaned, but it is preferably set in the range of ^{2 to} 4 [kg / cm ² ] from the viewpoint of equipment and environment. .

According to the above construction, by setting the spray angle of the chemical in the in-plane direction of the semiconductor wafer within the range of 100 to 120 degrees, the semiconductor wafer can be cleaned more reliably than ever before. . Further, by setting the discharge pressure of the chemical solution to 2 [kg / cm ² ], the semiconductor wafer can be cleaned more reliably than ever before.

Although the number of nozzles is the same as the number of semiconductor wafers in the above embodiment, the present invention is not limited to this, and as described above, the number of nozzles is the number of semiconductor wafers. In the case of ½ or less of the above, by setting the scattering angle in the range of 100 to 120 degrees also in the nozzle array direction, the semiconductor wafer can be cleaned more reliably than before.

[0033]

As described above, according to the present invention, the scattering angle of the chemical solution in the in-plane direction of the semiconductor wafer is 100 to 12.
By setting the range of 0 degree and the discharge pressure of the chemical solution to 2 [kg / cm ² ], and even when the number of nozzles is small, the scattering angle is 100 even in the nozzle arrangement direction. By setting in the range of 120 degrees, the semiconductor wafer can be cleaned more reliably than ever before.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view for explaining a cleaning device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a table showing experimental results with various scattering angles.

FIG. 4 is a table showing experimental results obtained by changing discharge pressure in various ways.

FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view for explaining a semiconductor manufacturing process.

FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view showing a cleaning device.

[Explanation of symbols]

11, 21 ... Cleaning device, 12 ... Chamber, 13 ...
… Semiconductor wafer, 15,25 …… Nozzle

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    (72) Inventor Tetsuya Kobayashi             6-735 Kita-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo Soni             -Inside the corporation (72) Inventor Kenichi Shindome             6-735 Kita-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo Soni             -Inside the corporation F term (reference) 3B201 AA03 AB03 AB50 BB22 BB33                       BB36 BB92

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A substrate having a chamber for accommodating a plurality of semiconductor wafers and holding them in parallel, and a nozzle disposed in the chamber for spraying a cleaning chemical onto the semiconductor wafer from above the semiconductor wafer. In the cleaning apparatus, the nozzle is set such that a spray angle of the chemical in the in-plane direction of the semiconductor wafer is in a range of 100 to 120 degrees. 2. A substrate having a chamber for accommodating a plurality of semiconductor wafers and holding them in parallel, and a nozzle arranged in the chamber for spraying a cleaning chemical onto the semiconductor wafers from above the semiconductor wafers. In the cleaning apparatus, the substrate cleaning apparatus is characterized in that the discharge pressure of the chemical liquid is set to 2 [kg / cm ² ] or more. 3. A substrate having a chamber for accommodating a plurality of semiconductor wafers and holding them in parallel, and a nozzle disposed in the chamber for spraying a cleaning chemical onto the semiconductor wafers from above the semiconductor wafers. In the cleaning apparatus, the nozzles are sequentially formed in a continuous direction of the semiconductor wafers by a number equal to or less than ½ of the number of the semiconductor wafers, and a spray angle of the chemical solution in an arrangement direction of the nozzles is
A substrate cleaning apparatus, which is set to fall within a range of 100 to 120 degrees. 4. A substrate cleaning method in which a plurality of semiconductor wafers are housed in a chamber and held in parallel, and a chemical liquid for cleaning is sprayed onto the semiconductor wafers from a nozzle arranged above the semiconductor wafers. A method for cleaning a substrate, characterized in that a scattering angle of the chemical solution from the nozzle in an in-plane direction of the semiconductor wafer is set in a range of 100 to 120 degrees. 5. A substrate cleaning method in which a plurality of semiconductor wafers are housed and held in parallel in a chamber, and a cleaning liquid is sprayed onto the semiconductor wafers from a nozzle arranged above the semiconductor wafers. The discharge pressure of the chemical solution from the nozzle is 2 [kg / cm
² ] A substrate cleaning method characterized by being set as described above. 6. A substrate cleaning method in which a plurality of semiconductor wafers are housed and held in parallel in a chamber, and a cleaning liquid is sprayed onto the semiconductor wafers from a nozzle arranged above the semiconductor wafers. When the nozzles are sequentially formed in a continuous direction of the semiconductor wafers by a number equal to or less than ½ of the number of the semiconductor wafers, a scattering angle of the chemical solution from the nozzles in the arrangement direction of the nozzles is set. , A range of 100 to 120 degrees, and a substrate cleaning method.