METHOD OF CLEANING A SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE PROCESSING CHAMBER AFTER A COPPER ETCH PROCESS

摘要

The present invention is a method for removing deposited etch byproducts from surfaces of a semiconductor processing chamber after a copper etch process. The method of the invention comprises the following general steps: a) an oxidation step, in which interior surfaces of the processing chamber are contacted with an oxidizing plasma; b) a first non-plasma cleaning step, in which interior surfaces of the processing chamber are contacted with an H<+>hfac-comprising gas; and c) a second cleaning step, in which interior surfaces of the processing chamber are contacted with a plasma containing reactive fluorine species, whereby at least a portion of the copper etch byproducts remaining after step (b) are volatilized into gaseous species, which are removed from the processing chamber. The method of the invention is preferably performed at a chamber wall temperature of at least 150 DEG C in order to achieve optimum cleaning of the chamber at the chamber operating pressures typically used during the cleaning process. The dry cleaning method of the invention can be performed between wafer processing runs without opening the processing chamber, thereby minimizing potential contamination to the chamber as well as chamber downtime.