Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Comp. Ltd.

Hsin-Kuo Chang

Hong-Hsing Chou

Jaw-Lih Shih

Yeh-Chieh Wang

Chia-Hung Lai

Hsun-Peng Lin

Chung-Nan Chen

Han-Chih Chung

Chi-Jen Hsieh

Kuang Hsiung Cheng

Astha Sharma

Yueh-Chih Wang

In embodiments of the present disclosure, a vibrator is used to generate a vibration wave with a variable frequency that can agitate and facilitate the circulation of the processing fluids, thereby enhancing the uniformity and efficiency of the resulting semiconductor device features, the vibrator may be a piezoelectric vibrator or other similar vibrators. In some embodiments, the vibration of the processing fluids can facilitate the processing fluids in circulating in and out of narrow channels or features, or the vibration of the processing fluids can facilitate the bubbling out of the microbubbles entrapped in the processing liquid or entrapped between the surface of the semiconductor wafer and the processing liquid. In another embodiment, the vibrations generated by the vibrator have vibration waves with a variable frequency to avoid resonance that may damage the semiconductor wafer and the features thereon.

Apparatus for supporting a semiconductor wafer and method of vibrating a semiconductor wafer

The present disclosure provides a method of cleaning a semiconductor wafer during a process of fabricating a semiconductor device. The method includes loading a semiconductor wafer into a wafer handling system. The method includes removing contaminant particles from an edge region of the wafer from the back side, wherein alignment marks are located in the edge region. The method includes collecting the removed contaminant particles and discarding the collected contaminant particles out of the wafer handling system. The disclosure also provides an apparatus for fabricating a semiconductor device. The apparatus includes a wafer cleaning device that is operable to clean a predetermined region of the wafer on the back surface thereof. The predetermined region of the wafer at least partially overlaps with one or more alignment marks.

Removal of particles on back side of wafer

A light source includes a plurality of ultraviolet (UV) light emitting diodes (LEDs) and an LED phase shift controller coupled to the plurality of UV LEDs adapted to control the phase shift of each UV LED in the plurality of UV LEDs. The plurality of UV LEDs forms a UV LED array. An ultraviolet lithography system can include a light source as described above. The system can further include a mirror assembly in a light path of the light source, the mirror assembly having a polarization mirror with an interference coating. A method provides a light source for an ultraviolet lithography system including the element of providing an plurality of UV LEDs that emit UV light and the element of controlling a phase shift of the plurality of UV LEDs with an LED phase shift controller coupled to each UV LED or arrays of the UV LEDs in the plurality of UV LEDs.

Ultraviolet light emitting diode array light source for photolithography and method

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Hsinchu, Taiwan

Hsin-Kuo Chang