Applying diluted iron, nickel, and copper solutions to front and back side spin-on, respectively, and to immersion spiking, we investigated the contamination mechanism of silicon wafers. The immersion procedure was found to be advantageous as a batch process, with the drawback that it can only be applied at lower concentration levels than the spin-on technique and, therefore, it was much more tedious to control. The immersion technique led to a chemisorption of metal ions on the native oxide. In comparison to iron and nickel, copper was less readily adsorbed on the wafer surface by immersion. A thermodynamic model interprets the conspicuous results of copper contamination. Spin-on spiking led to a dried film of the contamination solution on the wafer. Chemisorption processes could not bi:confirmed under the given spin-on conditions. Thus, the contamination level on the wafer was the same for nickel, iron, and copper when spiking solutions of the same concentration were used. After the metal drive-in step for nickel and copper at 800 degrees C and for iron at 1000 degrees C, a recovery rate of 50-100% was found by chemical analysis. In order to avoid cross contamination, different concentration levels or different spiking elements should not be treated in the same thermal drive-in batch process. Charge-to-breakdown measurements of capacitors were used to evaluate the influence of surface metal contamination and, after drive-in, for gettering studies.