Eco-Friendly Dry-Cleaning and Diagnostics of Silicon Dioxide Deposition Chamber

Semiconductor industry is experiencing a rising demand for environmentally friendly processes with the emphasis on green policies and worldwide environmental sustainability. Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), the most common plasma chamber cleaning agent gas, poses a significant concern as a potent greenhouse gas since it has global warming potential (GWP), 740 times and 6 times higher than that CO2 and N2O. This study investigated the exhaust gas using quadrupole mass spectroscopy (QMS) and analyzed the change in cleaning speed and the type of exhaust gas through plasma monitoring using optical mass spectroscopy (OES). The objective is to lower the use of the amount of NF3 gas in chamber cleaning process to partially contribute the environmental sustainability in the point of semiconductor manufacturing. When a small amount of N2 was added to NF3 whose ratio of 7:23, the cleaning efficiency reached to 90 % compared to NF3 gas alone. Addition of N2 positively affected electron density and temperature to increase the F-radical in remote plasma system. In conclusion, 18 % of NF3 usage amount was reduced during the SiO2 deposition chamber cleaning process.