Patent ID: 8083862

Claim:
A method of monitoring an amount of contamination on a substrate, comprising: disposing a substrate having contamination in a cleaning system configured to remove said contamination using a dry, non-plasma cleaning process, wherein said contamination has accumulated as a result of a series of processing steps in a manufacturing process flow, and said contamination comprises a metal-containing contamination; performing said dry, non-plasma cleaning process by: chemically treating said contamination within said cleaning system in order to chemically alter said contamination, wherein said chemically treating said contamination comprises exposing said contamination to a process gas having as incipient ingredient HF, and thermally treating said chemically altered contamination in order to evaporate said chemically altered contamination; and during said dry, non-plasma cleaning process, monitoring the exhaust of gaseous effluent from said thermal treatment of said substrate to determine an amount of said contamination on said substrate.