At&t Bell Laboratories

Bryan C Chung

Charles Walter Pearce

Roland Ellis, Jr

Gerald N DiBello

Kevin P Yanders

Kenneth G Frazee

In a wafer fabrication process in which a photoresist stripper must be removed from the surface of a semiconductor wafer, the photoresist stripper is rinsed by inserting the wafer in a vessel (23, FIG. 3) filled with water and simultaneously pumping carbon dioxide and water into the vessel to cause the water to overflow the vessel. Preferably, the wafer is contained within the vessel for at least five minutes, and, during the rinsing step, the water completely fills the vessel and overflows at a rate of at least fifty percent of the volume of the vessel each minute. We have found that this method of rinsing photoresist stripper from semiconductor wafers significantly reduces or eliminates the incidence of corrosion pitting on aluminum conductors (12, FIG. 1) of the wafer (11).

Semiconductor wafer cleaning and rinsing techniques using re-ionized

A reagent chemical is directed along a first pipe portion (20) that extends along one side of the array of wafers (14) and which contains a plurality of jets (33) for projecting the chemical toward the wafers. A plurality of second pipe portions (21) transmits an inert gas, with each pipe portion having a plurality of jets (34) for projecting the gas toward the floor of the tank.

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Flemington, NJ, United States of America

Bryan C Chung