The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 22, 2002
Filed:
Aug. 23, 2000
Youfel Chen, Albany, CA (US);
Brian J Brown, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Boris Fishkin, San Carlos, CA (US);
Fred C Redeker, Fremont, CA (US);
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and an apparatus that uses a surfactant to clean a hydrophobic wafer is provided. In a first aspect, the method may clean and dry a wafer without applying pure DI water to the wafer. In a second aspect, the method may clean a wafer by applying pure DI water to the wafer only for a short duration of time such that the DI water application ceases prior to or as soon as a surfactant solution is rinsed from the wafer thereafter the wafer is dried. In a further aspect a hydrophobic wafer is maintained wetted with surfactant as it is transferred between cleaning apparatuses and is rinsed via diluted surfactant or via a brief DI water spray and is thereafter dried.