Patent ID: 7300875

Claim:
A method for dry-cleaning metal residue from a semiconductor surface, comprising: forming a metal trench pattern in a dielectric layer of a semiconductor device, the metal trench pattern having a conductive metal therein, the metal trench pattern having an edge to edge distance of 150 nm or less, the conductive metal and the dielectric layer defining a semiconductor surface; preparing the semiconductor surface using a chemical mechanical polish (CMP) process, the metal residue including the conductive metal smeared in an unintended scratch at the semiconductor surface; exposing the prepared semiconductor surface to a plasma and an inert gas, the plasma having ions reacting with the metal residue to form a volatile gas, the prepared semiconductor surface being exposed to the plasma for a predetermined range of time to directly remove the metal residue from the scratch; and removing the metal residue in the unintended scratch at the semiconductor surface.