Plasma cleaning process uses oxygen plasma to remove organic materials on wafer surface. The cleaning process can be easily controlled through the RF power, gas flow rate, gas pressure and cleaning time. Compared with other type of cleaning methods, plasma cleaning process tends to be cleaner since the cleaning products are in gas phase (CO, CO2, H2O).

The plasma cleaning/etching system in our facility, PX-250 by March Instruments, is mainly used for organic resist ashing (bulk resist material stripping) and descumming (resist residue removal) using oxygen plasma. Other type of process gases (SF6, Ar, etc.) can also be used for etching applications.