International Business Machines Corporation

Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.

Henry L Wolfe

Douglas W Cooper

Wayne Thomas McDermott

Alexander Schwarz

Jin J Wu

Richard Carl Ockovic

James T Yeh

A method is disclosed for cleaning microelectronic surfaces using an aerosol of at least substantially solid argon or nitrogen particles which impinge upon the surface to be cleaned and then evaporate and the resulting gas is removed by venting along with the contaminants dislodged by the cleaning method.

Surface cleaning using an argon or nitrogen aerosol

A method is disclosed for cleaning microelectronics surfaces using an aerosol of at least substantially solid argon particles which impinge upon the surface to be cleaned and then evaporate and the resulting gas is removed by venting along with the contaminants dislodged by the cleaning method.

Surface cleaning using a cryogenic aerosol

An apparatus and method for electrostatic removal of micron and sub-micron sized contaminant particles is disclosed herein. The apparatus and method comprise creating a potential difference with a megavolt/cm electrostatic field between two conducting bases in a predetermined geometrical relation to each other. An insulator (e.g. a dielectric film) is maintained at or near contact between one of the bases and the surface to be cleaned to electrostatically remove particles from said surface. The bases can be made to move relative to each other and the surface to be cleaned.

Electrostatic removal of contaminants

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Pleasant Valley, NY, United States of America

Henry L Wolfe