Removal of volatile metal complexes and moisture from HCI and CO etch gases

~ by Carrie Wyse, Tadaharu Watanabe, Dan Fraenkel, Robert Torres and Virginia Houlding particle filters. This helps minimize corrosion and degradation of expensive components, and removes particles shed due to mechanical devices (e.g. valves). However, moisture purifiers do not eliminate the problem of molecular metal contaminants, which pass through particle filters. Corrosive gases, such as HCI and HBr, are known to contain trace levels of volatile metal complexes and can generate them in-situ via reaction with C ontamination control in etch processing is one of the key issues 'n the semiconductor industry. Even the highest-purity etch gases are known to contain volatile metal species in addition to trace moisture and particles. Volatile metal species pass through 0.003 ~ particle filters to the wafer surface. Figure 1: Apparatus for testing removal of volatile Thus, it is essential to metal species in corrosive gas remove these impurities from sensitive processes pN2