Penetration behavior of airborne particles into wafer environment

The importance of controlling airborne particle contamination in clean rooms and wafer environment is well-known and much effort has been devoted to keep the particle contamination from wafer environment. Table 1 shows particle detection limit on wafer suggested by ITRS 2012 that is desirable in the future flash half pitch size. It indicates wide diameter range of airborne particles, from the size smaller than 100 nm, is required to be detected and controlled with the device pattern size becoming smaller and smaller. This study is focused on particle contamination from clean rooms into wafer environment. Front opening unified pods (FOUP) and equipment front end modules (EFEM) were taken as an example of wafer environment. Furthermore, the possible future work on keeping the contamination from wafer environment was discussed.