Investigation of physical cleaning process window by atomic force microscope

The pattern damage-free process window of physical cleaning was investigated by measuring the pattern collapse and particle removal forces using atomic force microscope with a quantitative lateral force calibration method. The pattern collapse forces of amorphous Si (a-Si) with 20 nm in width and 100 nm in height and TiN/black diamond (BD) II/SiCN-SiCO with 80 nm width and 210 nm height on SiO2/Si-substrates were measured. The particle removal forces of silica and PSL with 100, 300, and 500 nm diameters were measured on ozone last Si surface. The damage free cleaning process windows certainly were measured to be 600 and 3000 nN for a-Si and BDII, respectively