Cleaning and etching methods and their apparatuses

摘要

A cleaning method for removing fats, oils, and silicon small particles, which are conventionally difficult to remove, adhering to devices and carriers used to manufacture a semiconductor wafer or a semiconductor device. An etching method is also disclosed. XeF₂ gas produced by sublimation is made to contact with an object to be cleaned in a vacuum atmosphere so as to decompose and gasify the oils and fats and to remove silicon small particles by etching. Prior to the cleaning, when a trace amount of residual water is left in the vacuum atmosphere, H₂O reacts with XeF₂, and HF is produced. For example, a native oxide SiO₂ formed on the surface of silicon small particles can be removed, and XeF₂ directly reacts with silicon, therby enabling etching. The cleaning etching rates are extremely high.