For decades, the semiconductor industry has been designing new devices that are smaller, faster and consume less power than their predecessors. To maintain this trend, the critical features of these devices must also become smaller and have fewer defects. The small diameter of a chip’s features requires the use of higher purity materials. As a result, all liquid chemicals and solid materials used in semiconductor processes should contain extremely low levels of contaminants.
Ultrapure water (UPW) is one of the most essential chemicals in the production of semiconductor devices and is used extensively for all wet-processing steps, including wafer rinsing and the dilution of compounds used in chemical baths.
This application note describes a method for the characterization of UPW using PerkinElmer's NexION® 5000 multi-quadrupole ICP-MS, demonstrating outstanding analytical performance in terms of detection limits (DLs) and background equivalent concentrations (BECs) thanks to its four quadrupoles and a wide range of other technological advantages.