Hydrofluoric acid (HF) is widely utilized in the semiconductor industry during the cleaning process of silicon wafers in order to reduce contamination by trace metals, particulates, and organic contaminants which would otherwise alter the functionality of the semiconductors. As such, the use of high-quality acids and the control of contaminants in the acid itself are important to the use of these chemicals in the semiconductor industry. Since the control of environmental contaminants at the parts per trillion (ppt) level is challenging, special handling is often required, and the acids need to be regularly analyzed for trace metals as part of quality control.
This work presents the fully automated analysis of undiluted semiconductor-grade HF using PerkinElmer’s NexION® 5000 ICP-MS working seamlessly with ESI’s prepFAST S ultraclean sample introduction system. The automated dilution and MSA calibration capabilities of the prepFAST S achieved outstanding linearity of the calibration curves for all 42 elements analyzed. And the NexION 5000 ICP-MS effectively eliminated the spectral interferences in the samples, thanks to its multi-quadrupole technology and a true quadrupole Universal Cell, delivering superb background equivalent concentrations (BECs) and limits of detection (LODs), and also demonstrated excellent tolerance to harsh chemicals.