Electrolyzed water cleaning for semiconductor manufacturing

A semiconductor cleaning technology has been based upon RCA cleaning which consumes vast amounts of chemicals and ultra pure water. This technology hence gives rise to many environmental issues, and some alternatives such as electrolyzed water are being studied. In this work, intentionally contaminated Si wafers were cleaned using the electrolyzed water. The electrolyzed waters were obtained in anode and cathode with oxidation reduction potentials and pH of -1050mV and 4.8, and -750mV and 10.0, respectively. The electrolyzed water deterioration was correlated with $CO_2$ concentration changes dissolved from air. Overflowing of electrolyzed water during cleaning particles resulted in the same cleanness as could be obtained with RCA clean. The roughness of patterned wafer surfaces after EW clean maintained that of as-received wafers. RCA clean consumed about $9\ell$ chemicals, while electrolyzed water clean did only $400m\ell$ HCl or $600m\ell$ $NH_4$Cl to clean 8" wafers in this study. It was hence concluded that electrolyzed water cleaning technology would be very effective for releasing environment, safety, and health(ESH) issues in the next generation semiconductor manufacturing.ring.