Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Comp. Ltd.

Pi-Chun Yu

Ping-Jung Huang

Bo-Wei Chou

Wen-Yu Ku

Manish Kumar Singh

Jui-Ming Shih

Chung-Wei Chang

Bi-Ming Yen

Chin-Ming Lin

Peng Shen

A method includes rotating a wafer, dispensing a liquid from a center of the wafer to a peripheral edge of the wafer to control a temperature of the wafer, and etching an etch layer of the wafer with an etchant during or after dispensing the liquid. The liquid is dispensed through a nozzle.

Method for etching etch layer

Embodiments of the present disclosure relates to a wet bench processing including an in-situ pre-treatment prior to performing the first set of wet bench operations. The pre-treatment may include a pre-clean operation and/or a pre-heat operation. The pre-treatment may be performed in one of the existing ONB tanks without requiring adding new tanks to an existing wet bench tool. The pre-clean operation removes particles from a batch of wafers to avoid or reduce cross-contamination and defect issues, thus improving the yield rate of the wet bench process. The pre-heat operation provides better control and stabilize the temperature in the CHB tank to stabilize the process, such as to stabilize an etch rate.

Wet bench process with in-situ pre-treatment operation

A method includes rotating a wafer, dispensing a liquid from a center of the wafer to an edge of the wafer to control a temperature of the wafer, and etching an etch layer of the wafer with an etchant during or after dispensing the liquid. The liquid is dispensed through a nozzle.

A method for etching an etch layer formed on a front side of a wafer and a wafer etching apparatus are provided. The wafer etching apparatus includes a first flow channel, a temperature-regulating module, and a second flow channel. The first flow channel is configured to carry a preheated/precooled liquid for controlling a temperature of a wafer. The temperature-regulating module is coupled to the first flow channel. The temperature-regulating module is configured to control a temperature of the liquid in the first flow channel. The second flow channel is configured to carry an etchant for etching an etch layer formed on a front side of the wafer. The method includes: controlling the temperature of the wafer by using the preheated/precooled liquid; and etching the etch layer with the etchant.

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Hsinchu, Taiwan

Pi-Chun Yu