Semiconductor cleaning technology: Forty years in the making

The wafer cleaning semiconductor technology which has successfully evolved in forty years is discussed. The First International Symposium on Cleaning and Surface Conditioning Technology in Semiconductor Device Manufacturing was held in 1989. It was the very first topical symposium devoted entirely to the problems of surface cleaning and contamination control in semiconductor manufacturing. Selectivity of cleaning is an issue which was not a key factor in the past. The visibility and impact of semiconductor cleaning in ECS publications is not limited to seminal contributions by Werner Kern. various alternative non-aqueous techniques such as supercritical CO2 (SCCO2) cleaning, cryogenic nitrogen aerosol cleaning, low-pressure, increased temperature HF vapor cleaning, among others, are either already used in mainstream manufacturing, or are expected to be used in the near future.