Rapid detection of ultra-trace nanoparticles based on ACEK enrichment for semiconductor manufacturing quality control

Commercial fabrication of semiconductor circuits is currently conducted with nanometer resolution. As a result, trace amount of nanoparticles in semiconductor processing fluids have a great influence on the yield of semiconductor chips, which was only a minor problem in the past when semiconductors were processed at larger critical dimensions. Therefore, a highly sensitive and rapid method for the online detection of nanoparticles is highly sought after by semiconductor industry. The work presents a highly sensitive, easy to do, and rapid method for detection of nanoparticles in liquid, which is based on AC electrokinetics enhanced capacitive-sensing method using commercial microelectrode chips. The detection limit reaches as low as 0.1 part per trillion with a response time of 60 s. Testing conditions of AC voltage and frequency were also investigated to obtain the optimized test parameters. Compared with the other existing detection methods, this method is highly sensitive, of low cost and with a fast response, which is important to realize high-efficiency and -reliability quality control of semiconductor process.