The trend of microelectronic processing technology is for more advanced complex devices integrated in smaller size. Particles could become significantly more prevalent as killer defects and have adverse effect on fabrication yield rate. Meanwhile, clean environment control requirements originally focused on particles in the air have been extended to encompass liquids that come into direct contact with the work and liquids used in wet processes. Therefore, detecting and measuring particles for liquid chemicals and water play a critical role in semiconductor fabrication facilities. Our proposed handheld liquid particle counter (HLPC) will use a light scattering approach to characterize the size and concentration of particulates within a liquid from above a liquid surface during semiconductor manufacturing processing. During the Phase II effort we will design, fabricate, and test a fully capable HLPC prototype.
