Immersion lithography bevel solutions

The introduction of Immersion lithography, combined with the desire to maximize the number of potential yielding devices per wafer, has brought wafer edge engineering to the forefront for advanced semiconductor manufactures. Bevel cleanliness, the position accuracy of the lithography films, and quality of the EBR cut has become more critical. In this paper, the effectiveness of wafer track based solutions to enable state-of-art bevel schemes is explored. This includes an integrated bevel cleaner and new bevel rinse nozzles. The bevel rinse nozzles are used in the coating process to ensure a precise, clean film edge on or near the bevel. The bevel cleaner is used immediately before the wafer is loaded into the scanner after the coating process. The bevel cleaner shows promise in driving down defectivity levels, specifically printing particles, while not damaging films on the bevel.