System to reduce particulate contamination

Abstract

The invention provides a method for depositing a film on a surface of a semiconductor wafer while preventing formation of defects on the surface of the wafer. The method includes selecting a quartz wafer carrier for holding the semiconductor wafer during the depositing of the film, where the wafer carrier has quartz rods with fire-polished slots for receiving an edge of the semiconductor wafer. The semiconductor wafer is placed into the quartz wafer carrier with the edge of the wafer disposed within the fire-polished slots, and the wafer carrier and wafer are loaded into a deposition chamber. Air is evacuated from the deposition chamber, the temperature in the chamber is raised to a deposition temperature, the pressure within the deposition chamber is adjusted to a deposition pressure, and process gases are introduced to the deposition chamber. By reaction of the process gases, the film is deposited on the surface of the wafer and on the wafer carrier. Using a wafer carrier having fire-polished slots provides increased adhesion of the deposited film to the wafer carrier. The increased adhesion prevents spalling of the film off of the wafer carrier which causes particles of the film to impact the wafer. Such particle impacts introduce defects to the wafer which would render the wafer unusable. Thus, using a fire-polished wafer carrier introduces significantly fewer defects to a wafer than does using a non-fire-polished wafer carrier. Therefore, the present invention reduces the number of rejected wafers, thereby saving production time and money.