Radiance cleaning process fares well in Motorola study

San Francisco, CA

The cleaning process developed by Radiance Services Co. was deemed an “enabling technology” in an independent study released recently by the Advanced Processing and Characterization Laboratories of Motorola, Inc. (Phoenix). The company conducted the testing for the Department of Defense`s Microelectronics Research Laboratory under an environmental technology initiative grant issued by the EPA.

In its findings, Motorola reported that when cleaning flat panel materials, the Radiance process “was equal to, or in some cases, slightly better than current wet cleaning processes, with contamination levels lowered by wet processes further reduced by the Radiance process.” For CMP cleaning, Motorola found that “the Radiance process can restore silicon wafers to near virgin conditions.” According to researchers, “the reduction of post-CMP contamination compared to the three typical silicon chemical cleans provided clear evidence that laser clean processing is superior.” For bare wafer cleaning, the ability of the laser to remove photoresist particles proved inconclusive. The study did, however, conclude that the successful implementation of Radiance`s cleaning process technology would result “in large-scale conversion of both water and chemicals” and that laser processing can eliminate at least two manufacturing tools, reducing the demand for chemicals and waste treatment in semiconductor manufacturing facilities.

“Efficient removal of submicron particles is likely to be a critical path problem of future generations as set forth in the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) roadmap,” says Dr. Michael King, director of the Microelectronics Research Lab. “The study demonstrates the clear advantage of using the Radiance process in cleaning flat panel display substrates and substrates subjected to CMP slurries.” — TGW