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Dry Etching

Dry etching has replaced wet etching for patterning processes smaller than 3 μm since the late 1980s. It uses plasma etching which provides an anisotropic profile and reactive chemical species. Plasma etching works by ionizing gas between electrodes to form a plasma of ions and electrons which are accelerated towards the wafer surface, physically bombarding it and ejecting material. It can use both physical sputtering and chemical reactions with etchant gases to precisely etch materials.

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245 views

Dry Etching

Dry etching has replaced wet etching for patterning processes smaller than 3 μm since the late 1980s. It uses plasma etching which provides an anisotropic profile and reactive chemical species. Plasma etching works by ionizing gas between electrodes to form a plasma of ions and electrons which are accelerated towards the wafer surface, physically bombarding it and ejecting material. It can use both physical sputtering and chemical reactions with etchant gases to precisely etch materials.

Uploaded by

Mosaddek
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Dry Etching

The dry etching (also called as plasma etching) process has


gradually replaced the wet etching process for all patterned
etching processes since the feature size reached 3 μm in the
late 1980s.
Nowadays, because it has an excellent anisotropic profile and
can generate very reactive chemical species, the dry etching
process has become the primary etch approach in
semiconductor fabricating.
Plasma Etching Process

Plasma is an ionized gas composed of ions, electrons, and


neutral atoms or molecules with an equal amount of positive
and negative charge.
Although plasma is neutral in a macroscopic sense, it behaves
quite differently from a molecular gas, because it consists of
charged particles that can be influenced by applied electric
and magnetic fields.
To achieve the etching action, plasma provides energetic
positive ions that are accelerated toward the wafer surface by
a high electric field. These ions physically bombard the
unprotected wafer surface material, causing material to be
ejected off the wafer surface.
Plasma Etching Process(2)
A plasma is produced when an electric field is applied across
two electrodes between which a gas is confined at low
pressure, causing the gas to break down and become ionized
simple DC (direct current) power can be used to generate
plasma, but insulating materials require AC (alternate current)
power to reduce charging. In plasma etching, an RF (radio
frequency) field is usually used to generate the gas discharge.
Plasma Etching Process(3)
The free electrons released by photo-ionization or field
emission from a negatively biased electrode create the
plasma. The free electrons gain kinetic energy from the
applied electric field, and in the course of their travel through
the gas, they collide with gas molecules and lose energy.
These inelastic collisions serve to further ionize or excite
neutral species in the plasma via the following reaction
examples:
Plasma Etching Process(4)
• The interaction of plasmas with surfaces is often
divided into two components physical and chemical.
• A physical interaction refers to the surface
bombardment of energetic ions accelerated across the
plasma sheath. Here the loss of kinetic energy by the
impinging ions causes ejection of particles from the
sample surface.
• Conversely, chemical reactions are standard electronic
bonding processes that result in the formation or
dissociation of chemical species on the surface.
Sputtering/Physical Dry Etching
Physical dry etching requires high energy kinetic energy (ion,
electron, or photon) beams to etch off the substrate atoms.
When the high energy particles knock out the atoms from the
substrate surface, the material evaporates after leaving the
substrate. There is no chemical reaction taking place and
therefore only the material that is unmasked will be removed.
The physical reaction taking place is illustrated in Figure
Chemical Dry Etching

Chemical dry etching (also called vapor phase etching) does not use liquid
chemicals or etchants. This process involves a chemical reaction between
etchant gases to attack the silicon surface. The chemical dry etching
process is usually isotropic and exhibits high selectively. Anisotropic dry
etching has the ability to etch with finer resolution and higher aspect ratio
than isotropic etching. Due to the directional nature of dry etching,
undercutting can be avoided.
Typical Etch Gases
Reactive Ion Etching
Reactive ion etching (RIE) uses both physical and chemical
mechanisms to achieve high levels of resolution. The process
is one of the most diverse and most widely used processes in
industry and research. Since the process combines both
physical and chemical interactions, the process is much
faster. The high energy collision from the ionization helps to
dissociate the etchant molecules into more reactive species.
Reactive Ion Etching (2)
The primary difference here is that the noble gas plasma is
replaced by molecular gas plasma similar to that in plasma
etching. The approach is that both free radicals and ions work
together in a synergistic manner to etch the material. In other
words, the etching process involves both ion sputtering and
radicals reacting with the wafer surface.
The result not only has a high degree of selectivity but also
achieves a very anisotropic etch profile. In this etching
process, the actual etch profile is between isotropic and
anisotropic and can be controlled by adjusting the plasma
conditions and gas composition.
• The typical RIE gasses for Si are CF4, SF6 and BCl2 + Cl2.

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