In a well-planned global marketing strategy by NGT and its global agents, NGT:

Presented its revolutionary SC3 green, clean, and renewable process—to major Semiconductor top-tier device manufacturers in Asia and Europe—and received an overwhelming response.

Received 70 evaluation orders from major device manufacturers around the world to evaluate iMACS on pilot R&D lines.

Is working with one of the world’s largest Silicon manufacturers to evaluate iMACS at the Advanced Cleaning Center of Excellence in Asia.

Is collaborating with a few major chemical suppliers to build a global distribution network to supply iMACS to end customers at a given point of use.

Working in a joint collaboration with leading process equipment system manufacturers, NGT will integrate the SC3 process into the standard system configuration to offer customers a clean, green, and renewable process.

Completed the construction of a Class 10 clean-room and an UPW (Ultra Pure Water) manufacturing system to start shipping iMACS to its customers to fulfill orders.

Ships its first large volume iMACS to a major overseas Solar/PV manufacturer.

“NGT’s focused engineering and technology team completed building a new Class 10 Clean Room and installed NGT’s CCS-1000 system to fulfill the overwhelming large evaluation orders. This is a significant milestone in moving forward and is another vote of confidence by our customers, who are eagerly waiting to test iMACS on their production lines,” said Jacob Mor, president and co-founder.

To solve all your cleaning process challenges and learn more about NGT’s revolutionary SC3 process with iMACS, go to: www.nanogreentech.com

SC3™ is a green, clean, and renewable process—unlike SC1 and SC2—and with SC3™, NGT has revolutionized the cleaning processes and solutions for the semiconductor, flat panel display (FPD/TFT), and data storage disk drive (DSDD) industries.

• NGT has recently validated its innovative breakthrough SC3™ cleaning process at one of the world largest semiconductor manufacturers by conducting a series of side-by-side tests with SC1; SC3™ outperformed SC1 by 20% at particle sizes of 65nm and below.
• SC3™ removes nano particles—ionic, organic or metallic—and provides a green and safe environment–without any waste. In the traditional SC-1 cleaning method, Hydrogen Peroxide and Ammonium Hydroxide chemistry etched the surface and damaged the device structures, which led to a loss of topography; however, with NGT’s SC3™, there is NO chemical reaction with the surface, no damage to the oxide layer, and no damage or chemical reaction , to the wafers surfaces or device structures.
• SC3™ improves device surface roughness and reduces operational costs drastically by eliminating the need to treat the toxic and hazard chemistry with acid neutralizers and large amounts of water before dumping it into the drain.
• Because SC3™ is water, as defined by the MSDS, SC3™ eliminates the use of all toxic cleaning chemicals that have been used in industry for over 40 years.
• As an Advanced Global Material Supplier, NGT provides end users with SC3™ with a highly activated iMACS™ solution at any given point of use by various delivery methods, such as constructing iMACS™ farms outside the fab, or by integrating NGT’s CCS-1000 to any cleaning bench.
  Nano Green Technology, Livermore, CA

“With the ongoing focused process development on the technology led by Mr. Suraj Puri – NGT’s founder and inventor of the innovative technology, NGT has evolved tremendously, and has been proven to provide cost-effective green, clean, and renewable, solutions that enable our customers to excel in their process technologies and take their products to market,” said Jacob Mor, President and Co-Founder.

To solve all your cleaning process challenges and learn more about NGT’s revolutionary SC3 with iMACS, go to: www.nanogreentech.com

SC3™ iMACS™ SC3 Process includes iMACS™.

2009 “Best of West” Award WINNER Announced

SAN JOSE, California – July 15, 2009 – SEMI today announced the WINNER for the 2009 “Best of West” award, recognizing important product and technology developments in the microelectronics industry. Conducted with SEMICON West, the largest and most influential microelectronics exposition in North America, the Best of West WINNER has been selected based on its financial impact on the industry, engineering or scientific achievement and/or societal impact.

This prestigious panel award recognition presents a clear testimony by the Semiconductor Industry of the fundamental challenges facing our industry in rapidly moving toward smaller geometrics of 22nm and beyond, new materials and the need to align new innovative technology to effectively address the legacy SC1 challenges as defined below:

The problem:

• Damage to devices due to megasonic energy
• Damage to devices due to etching
• Ineffective removal of particles below 45nm

The solution:

• No Megasonic required due to highly energized clusters (iMACS™)
• No loss of topography because there is no reaction with native oxide
• No physical limitation in removable particles sizes 45nm and below

“We are delighted with this recognition by the semiconductor industry. The message is loud and clear – GREEN-RENEWABLE-CLEAN technology is the road map we must adopt in moving forward – there is simply no other way around it,” said Jacob Mor, NGT’s president and co-founder.

The 2009 Best of West Finalists are:

• AquiVia, from Alchimer. AquiVia is a new high-performance deposition technology that
  offers a substantially lower cost of ownership than alternative dry processes.
  Encompassing the three distinct process steps required before a through silicon via
  (TSV) can be filled with metal, it enables wet-process deposition of insulator, barrier and
  copper seed layers within high-aspect ratio TSVs using electrografting technology. This
  innovative approach ensures strong adhesion between all layers, and provides high yield
  and device reliability.
• Stress-induced LIft-off Method, or SLIM-Cut, The SLIM-Cut method, developed by
  IMEC, addresses one of the biggest challenges of crystalline-Si for photovoltaics: kerffree
  wafering of substrates as thin as 50 microns. Fully based on mechanical stress, it is
  compatible with low-cost fabrication methods. Made of single crystalline material, the
  wafers have the potential to provide high-efficiency solar cells.
• K-Patents Semicon Refractometer PR-33-S, from K-Patents, is a Digital Refractive
  Index (RI) measurement technology that offers many possibilities to increase wafer
  throughput and to cut down the chemical costs in the whole process from chemical
  supplies down to fab in-line and tool in-situ chemical concentration control.
• CCS-1000 Critical Cleaning System by Nano Green Technology Inc., combines
  deionized (DI) water and ammonia gas (NH3) to form molecules that move in a pattern
  with well-defined relative phases—known as “coherent” water—developed and
  trademarked by NGT as ionized molecularly activated coherent solution—or iMACSTM—a
  revolutionary green, renewable, cleaning process solution—for the semiconductor, Flat
  Panel Display (FPD), Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), and data storage disk drive (DSDD)
  industries.

  iMACS achieves an unmatched cleaning performance that removes nano particles—
  ionic, organic, or metallic—and provides a green—and safe—environment—without any
  waste. In the traditional SC-1 cleaning method, expensive chemicals etched and
  damaged devices and topography; with iMACS, the use of expensive chemicals is
  eliminated and operation costs are reduced—drastically.

• Gore® Filters for Semiconductor Applications, from W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc.,
  GORE® Filters for Semiconductor Applications are 20-nm- to 100-nm-rated cartridge
  filters for chemicals, dilute chemicals and ultrapure water in wet process tools. These
  filters incorporate a new high flow ePTFE (expanded polytetrafluoroethylene) filtration
  media that allows a drop-in retention upgrade from 100 nm to 30 nm, enabling cleaner
  recirculation baths and reduced processing times.

The selection of finalists was made by a prestigious panel of judges representing a broad
spectrum of the microelectronics industry (a list of judges can be found at:
www.semiconwest.org/bestofwest). Best of West Award winners will be announced during
SEMICON West on July 15, 2009.

SEMI is the global industry association serving the manufacturing supply chains for the
microelectronic, display and photovoltaic industries. SEMI member companies are the engine of
the future, enabling smarter, faster and more economical products that improve our lives. Since
1970, SEMI has been committed to helping members grow more profitably, create new markets
and meet common industry challenges. SEMI maintains offices in Austin, Bangalore, Beijing,
Brussels, Hsinchu, Moscow, San Jose, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington,
D.C. For more information, visit www.semi.org.

Association Contact:
Scott Smith/SEMI
Tel: 408.943.7957
Email: ssmith@semi.org

This customer in Asia has one CCS-1000 system—fully qualified and accepted—already integrated into its production line. Given the demonstrated results achieved with the first installation that delivered 0 particles—repeatedly—and NGT’s recent demonstrated results at another site that also had 0 particles / 100% PRE at 37 nm line, this major Asian customer has invited NGT to participate in its most advanced next-generation cleaning process development target at 32 nm production—down to 22 nm and beyond—as technology is aggressively changing our methods and processes.

NGT’s CCS-1000 system will be integrated into this advanced process—to examine how the iMACS cleaning process impacts patterned wafers; this study will be conducted by the customer technology group with the following objectives:

1. Dramatically reduce surface roughness / haze
2. Particle Removal Efficiency with no silicon etching vs. SC1 chemistry
3. Improved defect sensitivity due to a little or no haze
4. Eliminate SC1 chemicals
5. Reduce or eliminate the need for Megasonic energy during the SC1 process
6. Reduce or eliminate the usage of deionized water during rinsing—after the SC 1 process

“Collaborating with this major customer as a strategic partner to create the most advanced technology—and be recognized for this achievement—is indeed a great privilege for NGT. We are very pleased to have achieved this major milestone—a very positive move in the right direction that could not be achieved without the phenomenal commitment of NGT’s team,” said Jacob Mor, NGT’s President and Co-Founder.

Over the past 3 months, NGT has conducted extensive testing and evaluation side by side at a major advanced 300mm Semiconductor Fabrication with worldwide operations. Evaluation conducted at its final clean line using production wafers. Results clearly demonstrate 100% PRE and in some cases PRE improvement over traditional SC1 – meaning – iMACS clean process was able to remove particles that are unable to remove by the SC1 process.

The breakthrough results have been validated repeatedly at the customer site – in production – by a joint team of customer and NGT engineers.

The cleaning tool and process used for this evaluation was a batch process. All production and test wafers were provided by the customer. Metrology was conducted by the customer, on site.

“The results were much better than expected. Not only did we avoid the introduction of additional particles, but we were able to remove between 2-7 particles in the process. This is a feat that even the 40 year SC1 old standard of perfection – was unable to accomplish. With the astonishing success of our results, NGT is well on its way to meet the challenges our industry is facing. However, we are not there yet, as there are further challenges ahead. Since each customer is different in terms of tool set (Batch process Vs. SWP), as well as process parameters, and device structure, it is NGT’s driving force now, to fine-tune and stabilize the process to perfection – Batch-To-Batch / Wafer-To-Wafer. This is exactly NGT’s team focus. Being able to achieve those results in such a short time is a remarkable accomplishment that could only be achieved through close collaboration with our customers’ teams,” said Jacob Mor, NGT’s President and Co-Founder.

Over the past 2 years, NGT had conducted extensively technology summits around the world to educate its customers about the benefits of clustered water (iMACS™) as an innovative cleaning technology and its ability to bring particle counts down to zero, in a single process step on both, Reticle and Wafer surfaces. The break-through discovery has been validated at the Northwestern University, Nuance Center, where proof of cluster formation was measured and visually verified with the help of advanced TEM (Transmission Electron Microscope) technology.  The report by the NUance Center of Northwestern University is attached or available by request.

All samples used by Northwestern University in Illinois were produced by the current process developed in the state-of-the-art CCS-1000 Production System. A Nano Green system has been recently installed at one of the world largest semiconductor manufacturers in Asia in a 45nm production line as key cleaning method where NGT system has achieved perfect results. “These clusters have existed as a theoretical phenomenon in the bio-tech world, and have been explained and documented in over a thousand technical papers written on water clusters, but the clusters have never actually been seen. Previously the existence of these clusters was only theorized in mathematical equations.  Now, we can actually see these clusters for the first time; and are able to be produced consistently by the latest version of our NGT’s CCS-1000. With true real time process control and monitoring capabilities, we can now reliably define clusters and their activation level. This allows our system to deliver the necessary cleaning solution volumes, on demand. Previously NGT has shown cleaning results of zero particles at 45nm, 60nm, and 90nm, during a single pass cleaning of reticles or wafer in production”, said Suraj Puri NGT’s CEO and Founder.

“The break-through of visually verifying the presence of highly activated clustered water solution (iMACSTM), as produced and delivered by the CCS-1000 is another remarkable milestone in NGT’s technology road map an iron-clad Intellectual Property portfolio. This propels our company’s valuation to a much higher level, “said Jacob Mor, NGT’s President.

As the semiconductor industry moves to processes for line widths of 65nm and beyond, there is a need for a new cleaning technology which addresses issues of the nano world, especially the concern of silicon / silicon oxide loss on the devices during each of the cleaning step. Reducing concentrations of ammonia down to a single digit ppm and then to a much lower concentration, makes use of a new dimension of physics: Quantum Electro Dynamics and the formation of “clusters”. It is observed for the first time in a semiconductor manufacturing environment that the particles detached from wafer surfaces by megasonic energy, are removed effectively by the zeta potential produced by the “water clusters” enabling us to compare the performance of the clustered clean to the standard RCA clean of the fab.

Introduction

Clusters of water form on and around solute ions and/or molecules in very dilute
solutions and their physical properties has been described by Shui-Yin Lo [1,2] in
1996. Also, Suraj Puri et al. [3] showed, that extremely dilute ammonia solution,
can attract particles at a molecular level, using an ammonia solution at 10ppm or
higher concentration level. Once the megasonic energy has detached the
particles from the surface, the clustered water holds the particles in the fluid as it is
creating a zeta potential between the wafer surface and the water borne clusters. This
phenomenon prevents the re-deposition of particles back, on to the wafer surface.
The particles held in the liquid phase by the clusters, can then be easily transported
off the processing chamber by an overflow rinse.

Quantum Electro dynamics teaches us that under certain specific conditions, the
structure of water can be changed. The random motion of water molecules – under
specific conditions determined by the authors – form water “clusters”, that move in a pattern with well defined relative phases as compared to random water. This is known as “coherent” water, or “clusters” of water that have different relative phases as compared to ordinary water. These “clusters,” which range from very small (3 molecules of water to 280 molecules of water) attract particles of all sizes especially those particles that are similar to the size of the clusters which are subsequently removed in the rinse and dry processes.

The formation of clusters having been measured and the solution is now defined as “Ionized Molecular Activated Coherent Solution” or for short “iMACS™”.

As silicon processing keeps going down – from 90 nm to 45 nm device sizes – and
continues to point towards 32 nm devices and less, it is imperative to move to an
alternate mechanism of removing these very small particles without damaging
device structures.

The scope of this work was to compare the Particle Removal Efficiency (PRE) of this new cleaning method with a standard RCA clean in a large silicon manufacturing
fabrication area.

Experimental Procedure

Experiments were conducted to compare a manufacturing process which has been running for over thirty years in the semiconductor industry, with the newly developed iMACS process.

The cleaning tests were performed in the SC1 bath of a 200mm hybrid RCA cleaning wet bench supplied by Steag [4]. This re-circulating bath is running a standard
SC-1 process @65°C and is equipped with a Metronics Megasonics system and an
array of transducers attached to the bottom of the bath .

For cleaning efficiency tests 200mm wafers were intentionally contaminated with approx. 4000 silicon nitride particles deposited homogeneously on hydrophilic wafer surface. Particle numbers were determined by a light Scattering S6200 KLA Tencor Equipment @ 0,2μm. Another set of tests were run using particles of silicon dioxide at 78 nm diameter using 200mm wafers which were intentionally contaminated. These particles at 78 nm, were analysed by using the haze measurement and light point defect counts, on the KLA Tencor SP1 tool.

For creating the clustered water the CCS-1000 unit was installed in the clean room next to the RCA system. This system creates iMACS by using a mixture of DI water, less than 5 ppm of ammonia gas and megasonic energy. The concentration of ammonia as measured by CCS-1000 was measured and compared to an in-house chemical analysis.
Wafers were processed in the SC1 bath of a 200mm hybrid RCA cleaning wet bench and subsequently processed through a rinse tank and Yield UP STG™ rinse/dry tank, that uses a cascade overflow of DI water followed by a drain step using an isopropyl alcohol-induced surface tension gradient. A hot nitrogen gas drying step completes the drying cycle.

Results and Discussion

As there was production equipment being used for 24×7, device manufacturing line, the first main focus was to analyze the impact of the newly installed hardware on the production environment. Figure 1 shows that there is no significant rise in defect density when using the new ultra dilute solution (iMACS), compared to the standard SC-1 chemistry mixing unit of the main production Steag system.

Process Performance Demonstration Results

The PRE for silicon nitride particles for 200 nm size, is shown in Figure 2. For reference, test was performed using Std. SC1 chemistry. The cleaning efficiency of megasonic energy was evaluated by running tests with and without the megasonic energy. Another set of experiments were done by using only DI water with megasonic energy without any SC-1 or iMACS.

The PRE of the clustered clean is comparable to the Std. RCA Clean @65°C. For particles >200nm a PRE of >99% was reached for both iMACS & Std. RCA Clean@65°C, when the shadowing effect of the cassette was removed by moving the wafers through a ninety degree rotation, as shown in Figure 2.

PRE results for 78nm particles are given in Figure 3..The Haze maps given in Figure 4 show the distribution of the cleaning efficiency on the wafer. This distribution is driven by the propagation of the megasonic energy field within the limitations of “Steag” bath, and the cassettes holding the production wafers.

Experimental test results also includes tests with Standard. RCA clean @ 65°C. As for the silicon nitride particles the PRE for the clustered clean is similar to the PRE for a Std RCA clean @35°C.and the PRE of RCA@65°C.

The results from the haze map show that due to the excessively large etch rates of standard RCA clean we get a very uniform cleaning efficiency all the way to the edge of the wafers, even in the areas where there is no effect of the megasonic energy due to the shadowing effect. As we reduce the etch rate effects and go to Standard RCA @35°C,(this RCA solution at 35°C has one tenth the etch rate of Silicon dioxide as compared with the standard solution of RCA at 65°C) we see a distinct reduction in the PRE or cleaning efficiency as compared with that of RCA solution at 65°C. Figure 4 dramatically explains the reason of reduced PRE. Owing to the reduced etch rates at 35°C, and “zero” etch rates for iMACS, the shadowing effect of the Steag cassettes overwhelms the cleaning capabilities of the iMACS. and the standard RCA at 35°C.

Figure 5 gives the removal of deposited types of Silicon Oxide by Std. RCA@35°C,
clustered water(iMACS) and deionized water at a process time of 30min. Std. RCA@65°C is known to have 10 times the etch rate of Std. RCA@35°C and therefore cannot be placed within the Figure 5 as it would not fit within the existing scale..  The clustered water etch rates on the other hand, for standard processing time of 3 to 10 minutes, shows no silicon oxide loss.

Extra Field Data For Comparison Of Ammoniated Solutions And Clustered Solutions:

After completing the production testing at Infineon, other experiments were carried out in the field to compare particle removal efficiency for just Ammoniated water, without forming “clusters”, and using PCT Megasonic system and then comparing the PRE’s with a standard batch processing with iMACS.

With the above method Ammoniated solutions with D.I. water and without any clusters, were formulated at ultra low concentrations of Ammonia and then Particle Removal Efficiency were determined using standard batch re-circulating cleaning bath.

Fig 6 clearly shows that with Ammoniated solutions alone, for particles > 200 nm, does not effectively clean the Nitride deposited contamination. From >99% PRE as reported by Infineon in this paper, for clustered cleaning for particles > 200 nm, just ammoniated solutions without “clusters” , cleans an average PRE of ~50% for 0.10 ppm of ammonia concentrations.

In order to study the formation of clusters further, extensive tests have been done to measure the presence of “clusters” by inventing a technique based upon the differential absorbance signal of the activated (clustered) solution, from the absorbance signal of non activated(no clusters) solution, with the same ionic components in the two solutions. This differentiation leads to a clear residual absorption signal which is used as a measure of the quantity of clusters in the water.

Conclusions

The clean by clustered water has been shown to have the same PRE as Std. RCA
procedures @ 35°C and @ 65°C. Yet there is a significant difference in the removal rate of Silicon oxide.

As the integration race goes on towards low or no substrate loss, etch rates in
cleaning will be one of the key factors to a successful wafer cleaning strategy. This
makes the clustered clean by Nano Green Technology Inc. a very interesting new
alternative for addressing the technology needs of today’s cutting edge production
and the requirements of the years to come.

References

1. Lo SY., “Anomalous State of Ice” Modern Physics Letters B 10, 909 – 919, (1996)
2. Lo SY., “Physical Properties of Water with IE Structures” Modern Physics Letters B.10, 921 -930, (1996)
3. Suraj Puri et al., “An Ultra Dilute Ammonia Process for Particle Removal” The Electrochemical Society Proceedings Volume 99-36, 180
4. Handbook STEAG AWP tool,

Nano Green                                                                   Std RCA

Figure 1: Comparison of defect density of clustered water to standard RCA clean

Figure 2: PRE for clustered water and standard RCA clean @ 65°C

Figure 3: PRE for clustered water vs standard SC-1 @ 65°C and @ 35°C

SC-1 @ 65°C

Cluster Clean

SC-1 @ 35°C

Figure 4: Haze maps for 78 nm oxide particles, with shadowing problems

Figure 5: Oxide Etch Removal For SC1 @35ºCand Clustered Water

Figure 6: Comparison of Ammoniated water to iMACS