ME 141B: The MEMS Class

Introduction to MEMS and MEMS

Design

Sumita Pennathur
UCSB
 Outline today
•  Introduction to thin films
•  CVD
•  Epitaxy
•  Electrodeposition

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 Taxonomy of deposition techniques

•  Chemical
  Thermal Oxidation
  Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD)
•  Low Pressure (LPCVD), Atomspheric pressure (APCVD),
Plasma Enhanced (PECVD), Ultra High Vaccum CVD
(UHCVD)
  Epitaxy
  Electrodeposition (Electroplating)
•  Physical
  Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD)
•  Evaporation
•  Sputtering
  Spin-casting

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 CVD
•  CVD is a chemical process used to produce high-purity,
high-performance solid materials
•  Typical CVD process
  Wafer exposed to one or more volatile precursers
  These react and/or decompose on surface
  This produces desired deposit
•  Can deposit in various forms
  Monocrystaline
  Polycrystalline
  Amorphous
  Epitaxial
•  Materials include silicon, carbon fiber, carbon nanofibers,
filaments, carbon nanotubes, SiO2, silicon-germanium,
10/21/10 tungsten, silicon carbide, silicon nitride, etc… 4/45
 Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD)

•  How CVD works:

  Gaseous reactants, often at low pressure
  Long mean free path; reactants reach substrate
  Reactants react and deposit products on the substrate
  Unlike Oxidation, does not consume substrate material
•  Energy sources facilitate CVD reactions:
  High temperature, plasma, laser
•  Processing temperatures vary widely
•  Commonly deposited films: Oxide, silicon nitride,
polysilicon
•  CVD results depend on pressures, gas flows,
temperature
  Film composition, uniformity, deposition rate, and electrical and
10/21/10 mechanical characteristics can vary 5/45
 Types of CVD
•  Atmospheric pressure CVD (SPCVD) – CVD processes
at atmospheric pressure
•  Low Pressure CVD (LPCVD)- CVD processes at
subatmospheric pressures.
  Reduced pressures tend to reduce unwanted gas-phase reaction
and improve uniformity across the wafer
  Most modern CVD processes are LPCVD or UHCVD
•  Ultrahigh vacuum CVD (UHCVD) – CVD process at a
very low pressure, ~10-8 torr
•  Plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD) – CVD process that
utilize a plasma to enhance chemical reaction rates of
the precursors
  Allows low temperatures
•  Other types, MPCVD, ALCVD, MOCVD
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 Some reasons to use CVD
•  Oxide formation:
  To get a thicker layer than thermal oxidation can provide
  To create oxide on a wafer that can’t withstand high
temperatures (for example because of metal features)
  To create oxide on top of a material that is not silicon
•  For film formation in general
  To tailor the film properties (like form stress) by adjusting
pressures, flow rates, external energy supply, ratios of different
precursor gases (to adjust proportions of different materials in
the final product)
  Conformailty : (more of less) even coating on all surfaces
•  Drawbacks:
  Films deposited at low temperature are often lower quality than
high temp versions, and have less predictable properties
10/21/10   Flammable, toxic or corrosive source gases 7/45
 Thick Film Formation
•  CVD is a common MEMS tool for creating thick films on
the wafer surface
  In practice, film stress limits thickness (film delamination or
cracking, or curvature of underlying structures)
  Can deposit thick oxides; nitrides are still typically submicron
  Must anneal deposited oxides for some applications – lose low
stress property on anneal

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 Commonly Deposited
Substances
•  Polysilicon
  Deposited from silane (SH4) (SiH4 Si + 2H2)
  Usually preformed in LPCVD systems
  Growth rate 10-20 nm per minute
•  Silicon dioxide
  Source gases include silane and oxygen, dichlorosilane, nitrous
oxide, or TEOS (tetraethlyorthosilicate)
  Choice of source depends on thermal stability of substrates
•  ie. aluminum is sensitive to high temperature
  TEOS is the best, but needs 650-700C, silane is lower quality.
Thermal oxidation is best
  Ozone may deposit TEOS at lower temperatures – being
explored

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 Commonly Deposited
Substrates
•  Silicon Nitride
  LPCVD generally used here
•  Metals
  Molybdenum, tatalum, titatnium, nickel and tungsten
  Deposited by LPCVD

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 CVD enables conformal coating

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 LPCVD Polysilicon
•  Amorphous at lower deposition temperatures and high
deposition rates
  Typical temperature: ~590 C
•  Polycrystalline at higher deposition temperatures and
lower deposition rates
  Typical temperature: ~625 C
•  Grain size and structure depend on detailed deposition
conditions
  E.g. thicker films  larger grains
•  Structure, electrical properties, and mechanical
properties also vary with post-deposition thermal
processing
  Grain growth
10/21/10   Dpoant activation or diffusion 12/45
 CVD Machine

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 Epitaxy
•  CVD deposition process in which atoms move to lattice
sites, continuing the substrate’s crystal structure
•  Deposits monocrystalline film on a monocyrstalline
substrate
  Deposited film = epitaxial film or epitaxial layer
•  Epi = “above” , “taxis” = “in ordered manner”
•  May be grown from gaseous or liquid precursoers.
  Since it acts on a seed crystal, film takes on lattice structure and
orientation identical to those on substrate
  Different from CVD or thermal oxide!!

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 Types of Epitaxy
•  Homoepitaxy: only one material, i.e. Si on Si
  A crystalline film is grown on the a substrate or film of the same
material
  Used for growing a more purified film than the substrate
  Also known as “epi”
•  Heteroepitaxy: different materials, i.e. AlGaAs, on GaAs
  Cystalline film grows on a substrate or film of another material
  Often applied growing films of materials of which single crystals
cannot be obtained
•  Heterotoepitaxy – similar to Heteroepitaxy but the thin
film growth is not limited to two dimensional growth

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 Epitaxy applications
•  Used in nanotechnology and semiconductor fabrication
•  Only affordable method of high crystalline quality growth
for silicon-germanium, gallium nitride, gallium arsenide,
indium phosphide
•  Used to grow pre-doped silicon
  Common in pacemakers, vending machines, etc…
•  How it happens
  Slow deposition rate (enough time to find a lattice site)
  High Temperature (enough energy to move a lattice site)
•  Selective epitaxy is possible through masking
•  Can grow a doped Si layer of known thickness

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 Epitaxy methods
•  VPE, LPE, SPE, MBE
•  Vapor Phase Epitaxy – silicon is deposited from silicon
tetrachloride at approximately 1200C
SiCl4(g)+2H2(g) Si(s)+4HCl(g)
  Reaction is reversible, growth rate depends strongly upon
proportion of source gases
  Growth rates above 2um per minute produce polycrystalline
silicon
  Etching occurs if too much HCl byprodcut is present
•  May also use silane, dichlorosilane, and trichlorosilane
source gases at lower temperatures
  Not as clean, always polycrystalline, may have SiO2
contamination

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 Epitaxial methods
•  LPE – liquid phase epitaxy
  Method to grow semiconductor crystal layers from the melt on
solid substrates
  Tempertaures well below melting temp of deposited
semiconductor  the semiconductor is dissolved in the melt of
another materials
  At conditions between dissolution and deposition, the deposition
is slow and uniform -> monocyrstalline films deposit abour 0.1-1
um/min
  Conitions depend on temperature and concetration of dissolved
semiconductor in the melt
  Growth can be controlled by cooling
  Can add dopants
•  Mainly use for compound semiconductors
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 Epitaxial methods (con’t)
•  Solid-phase Epitaxy
  Done by first depositing a film of amorphous material on a
crystalline material
  Heated to crystallize the film
  Single crystal substrate serves as a template for crystal growth
•  Not very widely used
•  Annealing step used to recrystallize Silicon layers
amorphized during ion implantation is considered a type
of SPE

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 Molecular Beam Epitaxy
•  MBE very common at UCSB (Herb Krommer, Art
Gossard)
•  A source material is heated to produce an evaporated
beam of particles – these particles travel through a very
high vauum to the substrate, where they condense
•  High quality, low throughput
•  Grows selectively on exposed
Monocystalline surfaces

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 Electrochemical Deposition
•  A plating process that uses electrical current to reduce
cations of a desired material from a solution and coat a
conductive object with a thin layer of the desired
material, such as a metal
•  Electro deposition is like a galvanic cell acting in reverse
•  Plating processes use the reduction of metal ions in
solution to form solid metal
  Many metals – Au, Ag, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pt, Permalloy, [NiFe], etc…
•  Electroplating uses electrical current to drive reduction
•  Electroless plating uses reducing agents to drive metal
deposition

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 Electroplating: basics
•  Pass a current through an aqueous metal solution
  Anode is made of the metal that you want to deposit
  Cathode is the conductive seed material on your wafer
  Positive metal ions travel to the negatively charged cathode on
your wafer and deposit there
•  Preparing your wafer
  If you want to plate metal in some places and not in others, you
will need a patterned metal seed layer (and typically a “sticky”
metal adhesion layer under that)
  For very short features, just plate onto the seed layer
  For taller features, need to plate into a mold
  Molds can be photoresist, silicon, SU-8, et.. Depending on the
needs of your device

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 Electroplating
•  Pulsing the electroplating current allows to replenish
reactants (stress control, control over morphology, etc…
possible)
•  Under diffusion-limited conditions, amorphous metal
layers can be plated (very high surfaces, e.g. “platinum
black”
•  Process parameters: overpotential, electrolyte
composition, additives, pH, stirring, temperature
•  Control parameters: film structure, impurity content,
resistivity

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 Electroplating

(Some H+ reacts to form H* to combine to form H (g) but only 0 to 10% of the current is ‘spent’ on this,
2
depending on the additive. The corresponding current efficiency would be 90 to 100%

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 Electroplating Details

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 Dendritic Growth

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 Dendritic Growth

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 Dendritic Growth

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 Electroplating

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 Electroplating

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 Electroplating

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 Keyholing

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 Electroplating realities

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 Conformality and keyholes
•  To lowest order, conformal films coat sidewalls and
horizontal surfaces at the same rate
•  But high aspect ratio trenches are prone to keyholes
(CVD, electroplating, etc..)

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 Physical Vapor Deposition
•  Remove materials from a solid source
•  Transport material to substrate
•  Deposit material on substrate
•  Differences among PVD techniques
  How material is removed from source
  Directionality when it arrives at substrate
  Cleanliness of deposition
•  A family of quick, low temperature processes

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 Thermal Evaporation

•  Source is resistively heated in high vacuum

  Typical source: metal
•  Hot source atoms are emitted in all directions and stick
where they land
•  Substrate receives a directional flux of source material
  Good for liftoff processes, otherwise poor conformality
•  Possible contamination from generalized heating

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 E-beam Evaporation

•  Electron beam heats source in high vacuum

  Typical source: metal
•  Hot source atoms are emitted in all directions and stick
where they land
•  Substrate receives a directional flux of source material
  Good for liftoff processes, otherwise poor conformality
•  Heating is less generalized  less contamination
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 Sputtering

•  Unreactive ions (i.e. Ar) knock material off a target by

momentum transfer
•  Targets: metals, dielectrics, piezoelectrics, etc..
•  Different methods of obtaining energetic ions
  Magnetron, plasma
•  Low pressure, but not high vacuum
•  Less directional and faster than evaporation
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 Sputter Deposition
•  Use a DC or RF plasma in a parallel plate arrangement
•  Put target on the cathode (-) and the substrate on the
anode
•  Introduce a sputtering gas that will ionize positively
(typicaly Ar).
•  Ar ionized, is accelerated to the target, and sputters
neutral target atoms
•  Sputtered target atoms travel to the substrate (at low Ar
pressure sputtered atoms have fewer collisions with Ar
atoms).
•  Sputtered atoms arrive at substrate and implant, bounce
or diffuse around a bit, or simply stick, depending on
their kinetic energies
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 Advantages of Sputter
Deposition
•  More conformal than evaporation (ED)
•  Better thickness uniformity and compatible with batch
processing (vs. ED)
•  Easier stoichiometry control than ED or CVD
•  Can be done with almost any material (unlike CVD)
•  Arriving atoms have higher energies
  Higher effective surface diffusivity
  But can create subsurface defects
•  Disadvantages
  Subsurface defects can be generated
  Sputtering and impurity gases are more likely to be incorporated
(must have very pure and/or gettered sputtering gas)
•  NOT good for epitaxial films, good for polycrystalline and
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amorphous films 40/45
 Process Parameters
•  Substrate Bias
  Grounded, positive, negative or floating (affects energy of
depositing atoms)
•  DC voltage (affects rate)
•  Sputtering gas pressure (affects rate and energy
  A few hundred mtorr
•  Reactive gas pressure, if any
  E.g. N2 for reactive sputter deposition of TiN from a Ti target
•  Background pressure and sputtering gas purity (Affects
film purity)
•  Substrate temperature (affects film structure and stress)
  Hot, cold, or uncontrolled (modestly heated)

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 Doping
•  Doping is the introduction of a controlled amount of
impurities to change the conductivity type and degree of
a semiconductor
•  In silicon, boron is a p-type dopant (creating holes), while
phosphorus, arsenic, and antimony are n-type dopants
(creating conduction electrons)
•  Some doping incorporated in initial silicon melt
•  All modern thin film doping is done with ion implantation
•  Doping doesn’t add a new thin film, but it modified the
properties of a thin film at the surface of an existing
material

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 Ion Implantation
•  A high-voltage accelerator is used to shoot ions at the
wafer
•  The beam must be rastered and the wafer must be
rotated to achieve uniform dose
•  Usually a thin protective layer, such as oxide, is used to
prevent sputtering of the surface and to reduce
channeling
•  The depth of the implant dose depends on energy
•  Activation anneal after implantation allows dopants to
reach proper positions in crystal

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 Effective Range
•  The effective range measures the location of the peak
concentration of an implanted species

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 Masking of implants
•  Control of which regions of a wafer receive the implant is
achieved with masking layers

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 Diffusion
•  After implantation, ions are driven deeper into the
substrate by diffusion, a high-temperature process
•  The junction depth is the point at which the implanted ion
concentration is equal (but of opposite type) to the
substrate doping

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 Etching, liftoff, and adhesion layers

•  Films are patterned differently depending on whether the

material in question tends to react with other materials
•  Materials that react (for example, aluminum):
  Deposit a blanket film (sputtering good for better conformality),
do photolithography, and etch it into desired shape
•  Materials that don’t react readily (for example, noble
metals):
  Hard to etch: typically use liftoff instead
  Pattern resist, then deposit metal on top with a directional
deposition tool
  Not very sticky: typically need an aehesion layer to stick the
noble metal to what lies beneath
  Example: use a few hundred A thick layer of Cr or Ti to adhere
Au to an underlying oxide (deposited without breaking vacuum
10/21/10 between layers) 47/45
 Is that all you can do with deposited
films?
•  No!
•  Spin-casting: put the stuff that you want to deposit in a
liquid, spin it onto the surface like resist, and bake out
the solvent (spin on glass, PZT piezoelectrics)
•  Other forms of vapor deposition designed for a particular
purpose (depositing the inert polymer parylene by vapor
deposition followed by polymerization)
•  Lamination of free-standing resist films onto surfaces
•  Self assembled monolayers
•  …

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