A system and method for treating a substrate is described. In particular, the system and method for treating a substrate include techniques for removing particles from the surface of a microelectronic substrate. The system includes: a vacuum process chamber; a substrate stage for supporting a microelectronic substrate within the vacuum process chamber; a cryogenic fluid supply system that can provide a fluid or fluid mixture through one or more nozzles arranged within the vacuum process chamber to inject a fluid spray into the process chamber in a direction towards an upper surface of the microelectronic substrate; and a process monitoring system coupled to the vacuum process chamber, and arranged to collect fluid spray data corresponding to at least one measured attribute of the injected fluid spray downstream of an exit of the one or more nozzles.

Some embodiments relate to a processing tool for processing a singulated semiconductor die. The tool includes an evaluation unit, a drying unit, and a die wipe station. The evaluation unit is configured to subject the singulated semiconductor die to a liquid to detect flaws in the singulated semiconductor die. The drying unit is configured to dry the liquid from a frontside of the singulated semiconductor die. The die wipe station includes an absorptive drying structure configured to absorb the liquid from a backside of the singulated semiconductor die after the drying unit has dried the liquid from the frontside of the singulated semiconductor die.

A protective film agent for laser dicing that includes a solution in which at least a water-soluble resin, an organic solvent, and an ultraviolet absorber are mixed and in which the content of sodium (Na) of the solution is equal to or lower than 100 ppb in weight ratio. Preferably, the solution further includes an antioxidant.

A dicing system and methods may include a novel way to separate die on a wafer in preparation for packaging that results in smooth diced edges. This is specifically advantageous, but not limited to, edge-coupled photonic chips. This method etches from the front side of the wafer and dices from the back side of the wafer to create a complete separation of die. It creates an optically smooth surface on the front side of the wafer at the location of the optical device (waveguides or other) which enables direct mounting of adjacent devices with low coupling loss and low optical scattering. The backside dicing may be wider than the front side etch, so as to recess this sawed surface and prevent it from protruding outward, resulting in rough surfaces inhibiting a direct joining of adjacent devices.

A method of processing a workpiece includes: a frame unit preparing step of preparing a frame unit including a tape affixed to an undersurface of the workpiece; a protective film forming step of forming a protective film on a top surface of the workpiece; a cutting step of cutting the workpiece by applying a laser beam; an interval expanding step of widening intervals between chips formed in the cutting step by expanding the tape outward in a radial direction; and an etching step of removing altered regions formed in the respective chips.

Disclosed herein is a device wafer processing method including a protective film forming step of applying a water-soluble protective film material to the front side of a device wafer having devices separated by division lines and next exposing the division lines to form a protective film for protecting each device, an application time recording step of recording the time at which the water-soluble protective film material is applied to the device wafer, a determining step of determining whether or not a predetermined duration has elapsed from the time recorded in the application time recording step, an etching step of dry-etching the device wafer along the division lines after performing the determining step, and a protective film removing step of supplying a cleaning water to the protective film to thereby remove the protective film after performing the etching step. Only when it is determined in the determining step that the predetermined duration has not elapsed, the etching step is performed.

Some embodiments relate to a processing tool for processing a singulated semiconductor die. The tool includes an evaluation unit, a drying unit, and a die wipe station. The evaluation unit is configured to subject the singulated semiconductor die to a liquid to detect flaws in the singulated semiconductor die. The drying unit is configured to dry the liquid from a frontside of the singulated semiconductor die. The die wipe station includes an absorptive drying structure configured to absorb the liquid from a backside of the singulated semiconductor die after the drying unit has dried the liquid from the frontside of the singulated semiconductor die.

A method of and apparatus for cleaning a semiconductor chip, the method including applying a first polar composition to a protection layer on a surface of at least one semiconductor chip to remove a particle from the surface of the at least one semiconductor chip and suspend the particle in the first polar composition; and applying a second polar composition, having a surface tension that is lower than that of the first polar composition, to a central portion of the applied first polar composition to push the first polar composition and the particle toward an outskirt of the at least one semiconductor chip.

Method of manufacturing an element chip which can suppress residual debris in plasma dicing. A back surface of a semiconductor wafer is held on a dicing tape. Then, a surface of the wafer is coated with a mask that includes a water-insoluble lower mask and a water-soluble upper mask. Subsequently, an opening is formed in the mask by irradiating the mask with laser light to expose a dividing region. Then, the semiconductor wafer is caused to come into contact with water to remove the upper mask covering each of the element regions while leaving the lower layer. After that, the wafer is exposed to plasma to perform etching on the dividing region exposed from the opening until the etching reaches the back surface, thereby dicing the semiconductor wafer into a plurality of element chips. Thereafter, the lower layer mask left on the front surface of the semiconductor chips is removed.

There is provided a processing method of a workpiece. In the processing method, a protective film including a water-insoluble resin is formed on the front surface of a workpiece and the workpiece on which the protective film is formed is processed. Furthermore, the protective film is deteriorated by supplying an organic solvent to the workpiece processed and the protective film is removed from the front surface of the workpiece by supplying cleaning water to the protective film deteriorated.