Removing W polymer residue from BEOL structures using DSP+ (dilute sulfuric-peroxide-HF) mixture - A case study

Abstract

As the feature size of semiconductor device shrinks continuously, various high-K metals for 3-D structures have been applied to improve the device performance, such as high speed and low power consumption. Metal gate fabrication requires the removal of metal and polymer residues after etching process without causing any undesired etching and corrosion of metals. The conventional sulfuric-peroxide mixture (SPM) has many disadvantages like the corrosion of metals, environmental issues etc., DSP+ (dilute sulfuric-peroxide-HF mixture) chemical is currently used for the removal of post etch residues on device surface, to replace the conventional SPM cleaning [. Due to the increased usage of metal gate in devices in recent times, the application of DSP+ chemicals for cleaning processes also increases