STI Post CMP Cleaning Solution Development

Abstract

Shallow Trench Isolation (STI) is the standard isolation method for fabrication of submicron CMOS devices. Ceria based slurries are often used for the chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) of STI structures. It is essential therefore, to clean the structure after the CMP process to remove the ceria and other organic residues, usually resulting from the slurry. In this paper, post CMP cleaning of STI wafers with a specially formulated clean solution has been discussed.