President Kanomax FMT
Shane has over 30 years' experience with designing, commissioning, and operating industrial analyzers across many business segments, and has multiple patents for analyzer design, operation, and analytical methods. He joined Kanomax FMT as President in June of 2025. He has a degree in Instrumentation and Control from TAFE South Australia.
Abstract
Aerosolization-based Metrology for sub-10 nm Particles & Precursors in Liquid Chemicals
The Yield Enhancement forum, under the aegis of the IRDS, has identified contaminants in liquid chemicals including particles, particle precursors such as dissolved metals and other inorganic species like oligomeric silicates, organic species ranging from small molecules to polymeric chains as detrimental to yield. Moreover, particle precursors are hypothesized to impact device reliability, affecting their performance in advanced computing applications. Traditional optical particle counters widely employed for particle monitoring in liquids do not detect any particle precursors or particles below 3.5 nm, the size currently recognized as critical to yield. While sensitive and effective metrology (like ICP-MS) and technologies to remove metallic contamination from process liquids have achieved significant control on metal-driven defects, a comparable control on sub-20 nm particles and particle precursors has only started, thanks to recent advances in closing the metrological gaps.
Aerosolization-based measurements, where particle-precursors and native particles are transferred from the liquid to the gas-phase prior to detection, have emerged to bridge these technological gaps in applications spanning the range from research and development to chemical and process monitoring. They also play a key role in the proactive contamination control strategy advocated by the IRDS Yield Enhancement forum. These measurements, sensitive to particles down to 3 nm and particle precursors, have demonstrated correlation to on-wafer defects in key process liquids like UPW and IPA. Applications have also been extended to chemicals like ammonium hydroxide, hydrogen peroxide and thinning solvents like PGME & PGMEA. Advanced microelectronic fabrication processes have adopted this technology for determining if liquid chemicals have reached cleanliness levels suitable for wafer contact. Over the last three years, open publications have demonstrated effectiveness of aerosolization-based liquid metrology for the most challenging liquid chemicals, namely sulfuric acid and other corrosives.
This presentation will primarily focus on how A-CPC can address Challenges # 7 & 16 identified in the IRDS 2024 Roadmap. We will open with applying A-CPC to profile a lab-scale system for supplying UPW, including identification of components contributing sub-10 nm contamination, measurement artifacts/interference due to sampling errors; culminating in system improvements. Subsequently, we will highlight the use of the technology in identifying defective samples of thinners used in photolithography, like PGME and PGMEA. Finally, we will explore the ability of A-CPC to measure organic contaminants in sulfuric acid. This sub-section will simulate the effects of aging of organic contaminants (e.g., siloxane) in sulfuric, addressing the unexamined possibility of such contaminants being lost to walls. The influence of operating variables (chemical concentration, temperatures etc.) on the A-CPC response to different organic contaminants (PDMS, PEEK, HDPE extracts, polyamides etc.) will be examined.