The Influence of Wafer Cleaning Process on the Silicon Surface Roughness

The cleaning process of the silicon wafer becomes one of the most important procedures in semiconductor fabrication. It is acknowledged to remove the contamination on the wafer surface as well as to promote an acceptable surface roughness, prior to performing various deposition methods. The wafer cleaning process which based on hot alkaline and acidic solutions is known as the RCA cleaning. The RCA is still the most important wafer cleaning method used in wafer fabrication industry. In this paper, the effects of various cleaning procedure to the silicon wafer surface roughness are measured using AFM. Subsequently, an optimum cleaning recipe is discussed and proposed.