The present disclosure provides an apparatus for treating a substrate, comprising: a chemical discharge pipe; a cover configured to surround the chemical discharge pipe; a buffer disposed in a space between the chemical discharge pipe and the cover; a chemical supplier configured to supply a chemical to the chemical discharge pipe; a cleaning liquid supplier configured to supply a cleaning liquid via the cover; and a dry gas supplier configured to supply a dry gas via the cover, wherein the supplied cleaning liquid is sprayed by passing through the buffer via a space between the outside of the chemical discharge pipe and the inside of the cover to clean a tip of the chemical discharge pipe, and the supplied dry gas is sprayed by passing through the buffer via the space between the outside of the chemical discharge pipe and the inside of the cover to dry the tip of the chemical discharge pipe.

Methods, apparatus, and systems are provided herein for processing a substrate. Generally, the processing involves Spacer-on-Spacer (SoS) Self-Aligned Quadruple Patterning (SAQP) techniques. The disclosed techniques provide a novel process flow that reduces defects by ensuring that cores are not removed from the substrate until the substrate is transferred to a deposition chamber used to deposit a second spacer layer. This reduces or eliminates the risk of structural damage to features on the substrate while the substrate is being transferred or cleaned. Such structural damage is common when the cores are removed from the substrate prior to cleaning and transfer.

This method of cleaning a semiconductor wafer can reliably reduce the LPD count on the wafer surface. The method includes a first step of measuring a contact angle of a surface of a semiconductor wafer under conditions in which a volume of a droplet dripped on the surface differs, a second step of calculating a ratio of change in a measured value of the contact angle to change in the volume of the droplet based on a relationship between the volume of the droplet and the measured value of the contact angle under the conditions, a third step of determining whether pretreatment is necessary for the semiconductor wafer surface based on the ratio, a fourth step of performing the pretreatment on the semiconductor wafer surface according to the determining in the third step, and a fifth step of subsequently performing single-wafer spin cleaning on the semiconductor wafer surface.

A cleaning solution includes a solvent having Hansen solubility parameters: 25>.sub.d>13, 25>.sub.p>3, 30>.sub.h>4; an acid having an acid dissociation constant pKa: 11<pKa<4, or a base having pKa of 40>pKa>9.5; and a surfactant. The surfactant is an ionic or non-ionic surfactant, selected from ##STR00001##
R is substituted or unsubstituted aliphatic, alicyclic, or aromatic group, and non-ionic surfactant has A-X or A-X-A-X structure, where A is unsubstituted or substituted with oxygen or halogen, branched or unbranched, cyclic or non-cyclic, saturated C2-C100 aliphatic or aromatic group, X includes polar functional groups selected from OH, O, S, P, P(O.sub.2), C(O)SH, C(O)OH, C(O)OR, O, N, C(O) NH, SO.sub.2OH, SO.sub.2SH, SOH, SO.sub.2, CO, CN, SO, CON, NH, SO.sub.3NH, and SO.sub.2NH.

A method of cleaning wafer-cleaning brushes includes passing a wafer having a first polished main side and an opposing unpolished backside between a pair of substantially cylindrical shaped wafer-cleaning brushes are rotated about an axial direction of the brushes while passing the wafer between the pair of wafer-cleaning brushes. A cleaning solution is applied to the brushes while passing the wafer between the pair of wafer-cleaning brushes. While passing between the pair of brushes, the first polished main side of the wafer faces a first direction, the first direction is an opposite direction to which a polished side of a production wafer faces during a subsequent polished wafer cleaning operation. The substantially cylindrical shaped wafer-cleaning brushes include a plurality of protrusions on an external surface of the brushes, and the brushes contact the wafer at least a portion of time the wafer is passing between the pair of brushes.

In the method for cleaning a silicon wafer of this disclosure, an oxidizing agent is supplied in the surface layer modification process from a position shifted from the center of the silicon wafer in the radial direction. The method for producing a silicon wafer of this disclosure includes performing the above-mentioned method for cleaning a silicon wafer. When the silicon wafer of this disclosure is subjected to a given measurement, difference between maximum and minimum values of the thickness of the natural oxide film in the radial direction of the silicon wafer, when a thickness of the natural oxide film is normalized to a maximum value, is 0.1 or less.

Provided is a treatment liquid ejection method and apparatus capable of significantly increasing productivity and quality by greatly reducing a maintenance time of a head unit, the treatment liquid ejection method including (a) obtaining test image information by test-photographing a treatment liquid test-printed by a head unit, (b) generating nozzle-specific characteristic information by using the test image information, (c) generating print file information to be printed, in consideration of the nozzle-specific characteristic information, (d) reflecting recipe information of a substrate or the head unit to prepare the print file information in an outputtable state, and (e) printing, on the substrate by the head unit, the print file information to which the recipe information is reflected.

A silicon wafer, a preparation method of the silicon wafer, and a passivation treatment solution is disclosed. The preparation method of the silicon wafer can include the following steps: providing a solar silicon ingot; cutting the solar silicon ingot with a first treatment solution to form a pretreated silicon wafer; degluing the pretreated silicon wafer with a second treatment solution to obtain a deglued silicon wafer; and cleaning the deglued silicon wafer with a third treatment solution to obtain the silicon wafer; wherein at least one of the first treatment solution, the second treatment solution and the third treatment solution comprises a non-metallic compound that is bonded with a silicon ion via a single bond.

A substrate processing apparatus and a substrate processing method are provided, in which a flow rate of CO.sub.2 injected into a supercritical drying vessel is controlled through multi-level pressure control. The substrate processing method includes disposing a substrate coated with a chemical liquid in a process chamber, that includes a space in which the substrate is processed; drying the substrate by using a supercritical fluid; and taking the substrate out of the process chamber when the substrate is dried.

A substrate treating apparatus includes a housing having an inner space; a support positioned in the inner space and configured to support a substrate; a treating container having a treating space therein and surrounding the supported substrate. A cleaning unit may supply a liquid to the substrate supporting on the support and a heating unit may heat a fluid that is supplied to the treating space to decrease a relative humidity of the treating space.