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<div>Hi Aaron,</div>
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<div>Great comments so far on this topic. </div>
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<div>I will add a suggestion that you might want to consider. I assume you typically have two, 24-wafer quartz boats loaded in this furnace at any given time. If you do decide to allow clean, previously processed wafers in this tube in the future together with
your usual virgin wafers, perhaps you might want to dedicate the boat closest to the source (ie., the one furthest away from the loading end) to your virgin Si wafers and the tail end of your second boat to the previously processed wafers. The thinking here
is that contaminants, if any, would likely tend to diffuse towards the load end of the furnace quartzware over time rather than the source end, thus keeping at least a good portion of the tube as pristine as possible. As an aside, I would not even consider
this approach for a CMOS oxidation tube.</div>
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<div>Best,</div>
<div>Vito</div>
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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Calibri" style="font-size: 14px; "><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">Vito Logiudice </font>P.<font face="Calibri,sans-serif">Eng.</font></font></font></div>
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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Calibri"><font face="Calibri,sans-serif" style="font-size: 14px; ">Tel.: (519) 888-4567 ext. 38703</font></font></font></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14px; ">Email: <a href="mailto:vito.logiudice@uwaterloo.ca">vito.logiudice@uwaterloo.ca</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-weight:bold">From: </span><<a href="mailto:labnetwork-bounces@mtl.mit.edu">labnetwork-bounces@mtl.mit.edu</a>> on behalf of Aaron Hryciw <<a href="mailto:ahryciw@ualberta.ca">ahryciw@ualberta.ca</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Date: </span>Wednesday, August 3, 2016 at 2:34 PM<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">To: </span>"<a href="mailto:labnetwork@mtl.mit.edu">labnetwork@mtl.mit.edu</a>" <<a href="mailto:labnetwork@mtl.mit.edu">labnetwork@mtl.mit.edu</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Subject: </span>[labnetwork] Oxidation of Si wafers with DRIE passivation polymer<br>
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<div>Dear colleagues,</div>
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<div>Our facility recently installed a Tystar wet/dry oxidation tube, which has so far only been used to oxidise virgin Si wafers. Recently, one of our users has requested to do a 400–1000 nm wet oxidation at 1100 °C on DRIE (Bosch) etched Si wafers which
still have DRIE passivation polymer on them, for the dual purpose of removing the polymer and growing an oxide. </div>
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<div>Given the tool's excellent performance so far, I am concerned with the possibility of contaminating the (atmospheric) tube as the polymer is burned off, adversely affecting subsequent processes. My priority is to protect the integrity of the tool, but
I also do not want to be needlessly restrictive if the presence of the polymer does not in fact pose any problem. We are a multi-user facility, with academic and industrial users who primarily do MEMS and microfluidics work (i.e., no CMOS processing).</div>
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<div>My initial thought would be to have this user remove the polymer first using a dry etch (O₂ plasma), only oxidising the wafers once it has been verified that the polymer is no longer present.</div>
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<div>Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks.</div>
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<div>Cheers, </div>
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<div> – Aaron Hryciw</div>
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<p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:arial;white-space:pre-wrap;line-height:1.38;background-color:transparent">Aaron Hryciw, PhD, PEng</span></p>
<p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:arial;white-space:pre-wrap;line-height:1.38;background-color:transparent">Fabrication Group Manager</span><br>
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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Canada T6G 2V4
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