The Pre Litho Cleaning step, situated immediately after PMD 5 Deposition and prior to Metal 1 (M1) Trench photolithography, serves as a critical surface preparation process for the back-end-of-line (BEOL) interconnect integration (Engineering Practice).In advanced nodes, the post-deposition surface profile of dielectrics is highly dependent on underlying pattern geometries, necessitating strict defect control before lithography can proceed P3.Unlike pre-epitaxy cleans that focus on removing nati