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Pretreatment

Pretreatment, also known as priming, is done before spin coating in order to ensure the best conditions for adhesion between the substrate surface and the resist. Pretreatment ranges from a simple dehydration bake over etching the native oxide to vapor phase deposition of an adhesion promoter. The goal of pretreatment is to remove any moisture that may be adsorbed on the surface of the substrate, and/or to modify the contact angle of the surface to match that of the resist to be coated on the substrate.

All surfaces can be divided to hydrophilic or hydrophobic surfaces. Oxidized surfaces such as SiO₂ or surfaces with native oxide (e.g. Si or Al substrates) are considered to be hydrophilic and have very bad wetting with hydrophobic resist. The adhesion of most resists on hydrophilic surfaces is deteriorated if moisture is present on the surface. Therefore it is very important to do the pretreatment step before the spinning. This page gives an overview of treatments available at DTU Nanolab to promote photoresist adhesion.

Dehydration:

A dehydration bake immediately before spin coating removes the moisture adsorbed to the surface, and greatly improves the adhesion of resist on most surfaces. For thin hydrophilic layers, a few minutes on a hotplate at or above 100°C may suffice. For thicker layers or bulk oxide samples, a dehydration bake at 250°C over night is recommended.

BHF dip:

Stripping the native oxide using BHF only works if the native oxide of the substrate is etched by BHF, and if resist has good adhesion to the substrate material itself, which basically narrows it down to silicon.

HMDS:

In the HMDS priming process, the -OH groups on the surface of the substrate are replaced with Si(CH₃)₃, thus changing the surface from hydrophilic to (more) hydrophobic. Substrates with surfaces of silicon or it's oxides or nitrides all work very well with HMDS pretreatment. Other semiconductors, insulators, or metals that form -OH groups on the surface may be suitable as well.

Dip/spin-on adhesion promoter:

Adhesion promoters for dip or spin-on application are commercially available. Most are solvent based with some, usually proprietary, additives. They work by first cleaning the substrate surface, and subsequently priming the surface with the additives as the solvent evaporates.

Comparing pretreatment methods

	HMDS	Buffered HF-Clean	Oven 250C
Generel description	Vapor priming	Native oxide strip	Dehydration
Chemical	hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS)	12%HF with Ammoniumflouride	none
Substrate size	Chips 50 mm wafers 100 mm wafers 150 mm wafers	100 mm wafers	100 mm wafers 150 mm wafers
Allowed materials	Silicon, glass, and polymer substrates (Tg > 150°C) Film or pattern of all types, except type IV and resist/polymer	Silicon Poly Silicon Silicon Oxide Silicon Nitride Silicon Oxynitride Photoresist Blue film	Silicon Silicon Oxide Silicon Nitride Glass
Restrictions	Type IV and resist/polymer on polymer substrate i.e. no resist coated wafers or crystalbonded chips!	Wafers with metal is not allowed	Resist is not allowed

Pretreatment of various surfaces

This section is under construction

General comment regarding III-V materials: A dehydration bake prior to spin coating can be enough, especially if adhesion is not critical, and if the resist is not left more than a day or two on the surface. Application of dip/spin-on adhesion promoter can improve the adhesion and shelf life. If adhesion is critical in the subsequent process step, application of a thin layer of SiO₂ using PECVD (followed by HMDS priming) as an adhesion layer is recommended.

	Dehydration	BHF dip	HMDS	Dip/spin-on adhesion promoter	Comment
Silicon with native oxide	(x)	x	x	(x)
Silicon oxide	(x)		x	(x)
Silicon nitride	(x)		x	(x)
Glass (borofloat/pyrex)	x		x	(x)	Dehydration before HMDS is probably best
Fused silica	x		x	(x)	Dehydration before HMDS is probably best
InGaAs	(x)			SurPass 3000
GaAs	(x)			SurPass 3000
GaP	(x)			?	AR800-30 is being tested (leaves residue)
InP	(x)			?	AR800-30 is being tested (leaves residue)
GaN	(x)			?
InN	(x)			?

HMDS

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The chemical treatment with hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) before the spin coating can be used to promote the adhesion for photoresist. Vapor priming with HMDS leaves a mono-layer of TMS (trimethylsilyl) on the Si or SiO₂ surface. The process dehydrates the substrate surface, and lowers the surface tension.

The molecular formula for hexamethyldisilazane, or bis(trimethylsilyl)amine, is C₆H₁₉NSi₂. Here is a schematic overview of HMDS treatment of silicon-oxide surface.

Comparing HMDS priming

Equipment		Oven: HMDS 2	Gamma UV/ Gamma e-beam and UV
Purpose		HMDS priming only	HMDS priming only HMDS priming and spin coating
Priming chemical		hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS)
Performance	Contact angle	Si (native oxide): 77.8° SiO₂ (110 nm): 81.7° Boron Glass: 97.6°	Fast recipe [standard recipe]: Si (native oxide): 72.9° [81.0°] SiO₂ (110 nm): 71.0° [79.7°] Boron Glass: 90.7° [96.2°]
Process parameters	Process temperature	150°C	120°C
Process parameters	Process time	25 minutes	1 min / wafer
Substrates	Substrate size	Chips (using holder or silicon carrier) 50 mm wafers 100 mm wafers 150 mm wafers	50 mm wafers (tool change required) 100 mm wafers 150 mm wafers 200 mm wafers (tool change required)
	Allowed materials	Silicon, glass, and polymer substrates III-V materials on silicon carrier Film or pattern of all but types, except type IV and resist/polymer (incl. Crystalbond)	Silicon and glass wafers Film or pattern of all but types, except type IV and resist/polymer (incl. Crystalbond)
	Batch	1 - 25, multiple batches possible	1 - 25

Oven: HMDS 2

The user manual, user APV, and contact information can be found in LabManager:

Oven: HMDS 2 in LabManager

Process information

Recipe 1: baseline prime process with 5 min HMDS priming time

Spin Coater: Gamma UV

The user manual, user APV, and contact information can be found in LabManager:

Spincoater: Gamma UV labmanager page

Additional information about the spin coater and processes can be found in Labadviser:

Spincoater: Gamma UV labadviser page

Spin Coater: Gamma e-beam & UV

The user manual, user APV, and contact information can be found in LabManager:

Spin Coater: Gamma e-beam & UV labmanager page

Additional information about the spin coater and processes can be found in Labadviser:

Spin Coater: Gamma e-beam & UV labadviser page

Buffered HF-Clean

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Another commonly used method to render the surface of silicon wafers hydrophobic is the dilute HF dip.

BHF is mostly used to do pretreatment step for new Si wafers. The native dioxide layer will be removed during 30 sec etching and in this way we will promote the resist adhesion on the Si substrates. We recommend to spin resist asap after the procedure.

The user manual, user APV, and contact information can be found in LabManager:

Buffered HF-Clean in LabManager

Process information

For more information on this BHF bath take a look here: Wet Silicon Oxide Etch (BHF)

Oven 250C

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The oven is typically used for pretreatment (dehydration) of Si and glass substrates to promote the resist adhesion. We recommend to place the wafers in metal carrier in the oven at least for 4 hours, better during the night, and spin the resist on them asap.

The user manual, and contact information can be found in LabManager: Oven 250C