Wafer charging in process equipment and its relationship to GMR heads charging damage

A significant amount of knowledge and understanding of device charging damage in processing equipment exists in CMOS IC manufacturing. This paper introduces the basic charging mechanisms responsible for gate oxide damage in CMOS ICs, illustrates these mechanisms with examples of measurements obtained in contemporary IC processing equipment, describes a wafer charging characterization method successfully used by integrated circuit and equipment manufacturers to quantify wafer charging in process equipment, and shows how this knowledge could be applied to the control of charging damage in GMR head wafer processing.