Current and future trends in microcontamination research

Because contamination can fatally flaw any process step in integrated circuit manufacture, contamination control is critically important to the yield and reliability of increasingly complex semiconductor devices. As industry strives to keep pace with rapidly shrinking feature sizes and as chip areas approach two square inches within the next ten years, stronger emphasis must be placed on contamination issues to achieve acceptable yields. The most critical research needs and requirements in contamination free manufacturing (CFM), as highlighted by the National Semiconductor Roadmap for Semiconductors, will be considered in this paper, with details and suggestions about seven important areas for research. A discussion of selected active CFM research activities and results are included, together with a list of several areas where additional research efforts should be initiated to meet future CFM Research Roadmap requirements