Treatment of semiconductor wafers

摘要

A method is described for treating a wafer having at least a surface layer of semiconductor material, the surface of said surface layer having undergone a chemical-mechanical polishing step followed by an RCA cleaning step. After the polishing step and prior to the RCA cleaning step, the method comprises an intermediate step of cleaning the surface of the surface layer of semiconductor material using an SC1 solution under concentration and temperature conditions that allow the emergence of defects in the surface layer (curve B) to be reduced compared with a similar surface layer which has not undergone said intermediate cleaning step (curve A).