Particles that are invisible to the naked eye present serious obstacles to improving yields and quality in the high technology industries.

The ozone-DI based wet cleaning processes are increasingly being practiced for the removal of organic contamination, oxidation of silicon surfaces, and resist stripping. The ozone-DI processes offer advantages of less resource consumption and comparable wafer cleaning performance to the standard cleans processes (SPM, SC 1, and SC 2).

Last month, we learned that: patents are technology that works because you need working examples to receive a patent; US patent applications are public property that can be accessed at a US government web site.

In the context of engineering or chemistry, we tend to think of contamination as a static, constant problem which can be resolved by filtration or dilution. Take the contaminate to a de minimis level, and the problem is gone.

I receive calls every day that start with sentences like, "I need a clean pouch." As I ask a series of questions that will help me understand the needs of this potential customer, I can feel a growing impatience at the other end of the phone. You can almost sense the caller thinking, "I just want a clean bag for gods sake, quit asking questions." But the questions need to be asked, because, "clean packaging" is a relative term.

A new cleaning platform for the IC and wafer manufacturing sections of the semiconductor industry, has been designed for advanced-front-end-of-line (AFeOL), FeOL, pre-gate, pre-epi, etc., cleans.

Typically, this column focuses on sources, detection, and avoidance or elimination of contamination, regardless of viable status. However, bacterial and fungal contamination are perennial concerns with variable, often unpredictable negative impact on processes and products.

One trend of significant concern in building cleanrooms and contamination control facilities is over-design and over-build. As someone in my company who is responsible for these activities, I am constantly assessing such trends in order to plan strategies to meet clients’ needs.

Why clean the room? It’s a cleanroom, isn’t it? This was the most popular question when we began cleaning cleanrooms in 1980.

Critical cleaning is best done via benchmarking—with metrics. We compare our costs to those of others doing the same work.

I found Senior Editor Paul Nesdore’s editorial titled “DUV Lithography Pushes Contamination Issues” (December 2002) simultaneously interesting and somewhat confusing. If I may, I’d like to offer a few observations.

Vibration isolation is critical for many applications including bioimaging, optical alignment, and microelectronics manufacturing and inspection. Many of these applications and their processes occur in environments where contamination must be controlled and cleanliness levels must be maintained.