A commercially available solvent, such as a stripping chemical and/or an organic solvent, is supported by supercritical CO2 to remove a resist, its residue, and/or an organic contaminant off the surface of a semiconductor wafer. Supercritical CO2 has a high solvency which increases with pressure. The supercritical CO2 permits a tremendous reduction in reaction time and amount of chemical utilized for the resist removal process. In a preferred embodiment, the wafer is exposed to the CO2 and chemical mixture in a process chamber heated to a temperature of 20 to 80° C. at a pressure of 1050 to 6000 psig for a period of 10 seconds to 15 minutes.