Freescale Semiconductor,inc.

Cortec Corporation

Barry Haygood

Scott C Bolton

Grant McEwan

Boris A Miksic

Cliff Cracauer

Brian Wuertz

A package for enclosing volatile corrosion inhibiting materials includes a first enclosure barrier being fabricated from one or more gas-impermeable materials and defining a first enclosed space. The package further includes a substrate having one or more volatile corrosion inhibitor materials disposed thereon, with the substrate being disposed within the first enclosed space. In some embodiments, a second enclosure barrier being fabricated from a gas-permeable, solid particle-impermeable material is disposed in the first enclosed space, and defines a second enclosed space inside of the first enclosed space. In such embodiments, the substrate is preferably disposed within the second enclosed space.

Volatile corrosion inhibitor packages

A semiconductor process exposes metal in anticipation of an additional processing step that includes a deposition of a layer. Between the two processing steps, the exposed metal is exposed to ambient conditions that may include humidity. The effect of the humidity is potentially to cause corrosion of the exposed metal causing a yield loss. In order to withstand the various time periods that may occur between processing steps, an inhibitor is applied to the exposed surface causing the formation of a very thin protective layer on the exposed metal, which greatly inhibits corrosion. This thin protective layer does not cause any problems with the subsequent step because the typical following steps all, by their very nature, remove the protective layer. Thus, the time period between the processing step that exposes the metal and the next step is no longer critical due to the protective layer.

Method for reducing corrosion of metal surfaces during semiconductor processing

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Barry Haygood