Using the Background Signal of a Light Scattering Tool for I/I Photo Resist Strip Optimization and Monitoring

With the continuous decrease of feature size of semiconductor devices new process related challenges must be overcome continuously. One of the key issues for technology development is to have the proper metrology in place to evaluate the myriad process steps fast and accurately. Sometimes the mere existence of a particular metrology is not enough because of cost and throughput issues. The goal of this paper is to show that simply by monitoring the background signal of a light scattering tool, certain process optimizations and monitoring can be done much faster while bringing down the cost significantly. We focus particularly on post I/I strip optimization in this paper.