Dev-Dep Development Wafer Contamination Standards

Characterize and optimize the sensitivity and overall performance of your wafer inspection/metrology system with Dev-Dep™ Development Wafer Contamination Standards from MSP, a Division of TSI. These high-quality wafer contamination standards are made to your specifications with quick turnaround, enabling short learning cycles during tool and process development.

Particles smaller than 1.6 µm (1600 nm) are deposited with advanced particle generation and DMA technology of MSP's Particle Deposition Systems designed for best-in-class deposition of micro-particles and nanoparticles. The modal diameter of deposited nanoparticles is controlled with nanometer-level accuracy and sub-nanometer resolution. Particles larger than 1.6 µm, up to 20 µm, are deposited with newly-developed large-particle generation technology.

Every substrate is handled with extreme care and packaged with MSP's signature triple-wrap packaging, preventing contamination during transport.

Deposit Patterns

Particles can be deposited in Spot and Full (Blanket) patterns with standard processing. Arc and Ring patterns are available with non-standard processing.

Wafer Types

Wafers of all types and many sizes can be readily processed with all of MSP's particle deposition tools. These wafer types include:

• Silicon (Si)
• Glass
• Sapphire
• SiC (silicon carbide)
• GaAs (gallium arsenide)
• Film
• Patterned

MSP stocks 200 mm and 300 mm bare silicon (Si) wafers, and can provide glass wafers and sapphire wafers according to customer specifications. Customers can also provide wafers of their choice (bare, film, patterned) for deposition. Wafers as small as 100 mm and as large as 450 mm can be processed.

Particle Materials/Types

Particle size standards available for deposition include PSL (polystyrene latex) spheres and SiO₂ spheres (NanoSilica™ Size Standards are best-in-class SiO₂ size standards offered only by MSP). MSP Process Particles™ Suspensions are material standards currently offered in 14 materials for deposition.

• MSP NanoSilica™ Size Standards: Concentrated suspensions of amorphous SiO₂ particles with highly uniform size distributions, suspended in ultra-pure water (UPW). Silica is the material of choice for calibrating high-sensitivity inspection systems with intense DUV light sources because they are stable under exposure to DUV radiation, and with a lower refractive index than PSL, they are more representative of real-world particles.
• MSP Process Particles™ Suspensions: Broad size distributions of irregularly shaped solid particles suspended in ultra-pure water (UPW); representative of real-world contaminant particles encountered in semiconductor device fabrication processing.

Wafer Contamination Standard Base Items

The Dev-Dep™ Development Wafer Contamination Standard (base item) consists of one deposit on a wafer (with triple-wrap packaging) and complete documentation (Deposition Summary, Certificate of Conformance, Certificate of Calibration) for each particle size standard.

* Particles larger than 1.6 µm are not processed with DMA technology.
** Process Particles are available in limited size ranges, which are dependent on particle material.

Additional Deposits

Individual deposits can be added to the base item to create a Dev-Dep™ Development Wafer Contamination Standard with virtually any number of particle deposits.

* Particles larger than 1.6 µm are not processed with DMA technology.
** Process Particles are available in limited size ranges, which are dependent on particle material.

Witness Wafers

To validate deposition processing of a film wafer, patterned wafer, glass wafer, or other wafer type other than a 200 mm or 300 mm silicon wafer, MSP first deposits particles on a 'Witness Wafer' before using the same deposition recipe for the final product. The Witness Wafer (200 mm or 300 mm) is inspected using a Scanning Surface Inspection System (SSIS) with ~35 nm sensitivity (KLA Surfscan® SP2).

Each Witness Wafer comes with a Deposition Summary, which includes SSIS inspection results (Report Only). At additional cost, the Witness Wafer can be shipped to the customer (Report & Ship).

For particle size <80 nm (PSL light-scattering-equivalent), a 300 mm Witness Wafer is recommended because 300 mm wafers generally have lower background counts at small sizes and provide better inspection signal-to-noise than 200 mm wafers. For larger particle sizes, 200 mm wafers are more cost-effective.

Wafer Inspection

MSP inspects 200 mm or 300 mm bare silicon witness wafers with particles using a Scanning Surface Inspection System (SSIS) with ~35 nm sensitivity (KLA Surfscan® SP2). Inspection results are provided in the Deposition Summary that accompanies the wafer contamination standard, including a scan image with particle size information and approximate count for each deposit.

Features & Benefits

• Totally customized solution based on customer requirements
• Accommodates unique/challenging requirements
• Consultation on application
• Quick turnaround for faster learning
• Widest available range of particle materials and sizes
• Over 100 particle size standards available
• Customizable deposition patterns and locations
• Particle size control with nanometer-level accuracy for nanoparticles
• Consistent particle size with sub-nanometer resolution for nanoparticles
• Particle count from 100 to millions per deposit
• Triple-wrap packaging for low-adder transport

Applications

• Wafer inspection tool development
• Wafer inspection tool performance characterization
• Wafer inspection tool traceable calibration
• Wafer inspection process development
• Incoming wafer inspection
• Determining inspection sensitivity for proprietary films
• Blanket film monitoring

Surfscan is a registered trademark of KLA Corporation.