• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.545-549
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• 2010

Low-frequency noise (1/f noise) has been measured in order to analyze the Vth instability of ZnO TFTs having two different active layer thicknesses of 40 nm and 80 nm. Under electrical stress, it was found that the TFTs with the active layer thickness of 80 nm shows smaller threshold voltage shift (${\Delta}V_{th}$) than those with thickness of 40 nm. However the ${\Delta}V_{th}$ is completely relaxed after the removal of DC stress. In order to investigate the cause of this threshold voltage instability, we accomplished the 1/f noise measurement and found that ZnO TFTs exposed the mobility fluctuation properties, in which the noise level increases as the gate bias rises and the normalized drain current noise level($S_{ID}/{I_D}^2$) of the active layer of thickness 80 nm is smaller than that of active layer thickness of thickness 40 nm. This result means that the 80 nm thickness TFTs have a smaller density of traps. This result correlated with the physical characteristics analysis performmed using XRD, which indicated that the grain size increases when the active layer thickness is made thicker. Consequently, the number of preexisting traps in the device increases with decreasing thickness of the active layer and are related closely to the $V_{th}$ instability under electrical stress.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.67-67
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• 2009

Due to the scaling down of the dielectrics thickness, the leakage currents arising from electron tunneling through the dielectrics has become the major technical barrier. Thus, much works has focused on the development of high k dielectrics in both cases of memories and CMOS fields. Among the high-k materials, $Al_2O_3$ considered as good candidate has been attracting much attentions, which own some good properties as high dielectric constant k value (~9), a high bandgap (~2eV) and elevated crystallization temperature, etc. Due to the easy control of ion energy and flux, low ownership and simple structure of the inductively coupled plasma (ICP), we chose it for high-density plasma in our study. And the $BCl_3$ was included in the gas due to the effective extraction of oxygen in the form of BClxOy compound. In this study, the etch characteristic of ALD deposited $Al_2O_3$ thin film was investigated in $BCl_3/N_2$ plasma. The experiment were performed by comparing etch rates and selectivity of $Al_2O_3$ over $SiO_2$ as functions of the input plasma parameters such as gas mixing ratio, DC-bias voltage and RF power and process pressure. The maximum etch rate was obtained under 15 mTorr process perssure, 700 W RF power, $BCl_3$(6 sccm)/$N_2$(14 sccm) plasma, and the highest etch selectivity was 1.9. We used the x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to investigate the chemical reactions on the etched surface. The Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) was used for elemental analysis of etched surface.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.209-209
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• 2009

ITO 박막은 박막 태양전지, 유기 태양전지뿐만 아니라 유연한 디스플레이, 발광다이오드와 같은 광학적 장치에 투명한 전극으로써 널리 사용된다. 글라스나 플라스틱 기판위에 형성된 투명 전극은 식각을 통하여 전기회로를 구성한다. 또한 식각 특성을 개선할 필요가 있다. 이 연구에서 우리는 유리 기판위에 코팅된 ITO 박막을 유도결합 $BCl_3/Ar$ 플라즈마를 이용하여 식각하였다. ITO 박막은 RF 마그네트론 스퍼터링을 사용해 200 $^{\circ}C$에서 비알칼리 글라스 위에 증착하였고 ITO 박막의 총 두께는 약 250 nm 이었다. 또한 전기 전도성은 $4.483{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$, 캐리어 농도는 $3.923{\times}10^{20}cm^{-3}$이고, 홀 이동도는 $3.545{\times}10cm^{-2}/Vs$이었다. Ar 플라즈마에 $BCl_3$ 가스를 첨가시키면서 가스 비율에 따른 ITO의 식각 속도와 ITO와 PR과의 선택비를 측정하였다. 최대 식각 속도는 $BCl_3$(25%)/Ar(75%), 500 W의 RF power, -200 V의 DC-bias voltage, 그리고 2 pa의 공정압력일 때 588 nm/min이었고 선택비는 0.43으로 다소 낮게 측정되었다. 식각된 표면의 화학적 반응은 엑스선 광전자 분광법 (X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy)을 사용해 조사되었다. 그리고 식각된 표면의 거칠기는 원자현미경 (Atomic Force Microscopy)을 사용해 측정하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.104-104
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• 2009

Critical dimensions has rapidly shrunk to increase the degree of integration and to reduce the power consumption. However, it is accompanied with several problems like direct tunneling through the gate insulator layer and the low conductivity characteristic of poly-silicon. To cover these faults, the study of new materials is urgently needed. Recently, high dielectric materials like $Al_2O_3$, $ZrO_2$ and $HfO_2$ are being studied for equivalent oxide thickness (EOT). However, poly-silicon gate is not compatible with high-k materials for gate-insulator. To integrate high-k gate dielectric materials in nano-scale devices, metal gate electrodes are expected to be used in the future. Currently, metal gate electrode materials like TiN, TaN, and WN are being widely studied for next-generation nano-scale devices. The TaN gate electrode for metal/high-k gate stack is compatible with high-k materials. According to this trend, the study about dry etching technology of the TaN film is needed. In this study, we investigated the etch mechanism of the TaN thin film in an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) system with $O_2/BCl_3/Ar$ gas chemistry. The etch rates and selectivities of TaN thin films were investigated in terms of the gas mixing ratio, the RF power, the DC-bias voltage, and the process pressure. The characteristics of the plasma were estimated using optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The surface reactions after etching were investigated using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and auger electron spectroscopy (AES).

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.785-791
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• 2001

High dielectric (Ba, Sr) TiO$_3$ thin films were etched in an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) as a function of Cl$_2$/Ar mixing ration. Under Cl$_2$(20)/Ar(80), the maximum etch rate of the BST films was 400 $\AA$/mim and selectivities of BST to Pt and PR were obtained 0.4 and 0.2, respectively. Etching products were redeposited on the surface of BST and resulted in varying the nature of crystallinity. Therefore, we investigated the etched surface of BST by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) atomic force microscopy (AFM) and x-ray diffraction (XRD). From the result of XPS analysis, we found that residues of Ba-Cl and Ti-Cl bonds remained on the surface of the etched BST for high boiling point. The morphology of the etched surfact was analyzed by AFM. A smoothsurface(roughness ~2.8nm) ws observed under Cl$_2$(20)/Ar(80), rf power of 600 W, dc bias voltage of -250 V and pressure of 10 mTorr. This changed the nature of the crystallinity of BST. From the result of XRD analysis, the crystallinities of the etched BST film under Ar only and Cl$_2$(20)/Ar(80) were maintained as similar to as-deposited BST. However, intensity of BST(100) orientation under Cl$_2$ only plasma was abruptly decreased. This indicated that CI compounds were redeposited on the etched BST surface and resulted in changed of the crystallinity of BST during the etch process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.14-14
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• 2001

Nitride films such as TiN, CrN etc. deposited on glass by PVD processes have been developed for many industrial applications. These nitride films deposited on glass were widely used for not only decorative and optical coatings but also wear and corrosion resistance coatings employed as dies and molds made of glass for the example of lens forming molds. However, the major problem of nitride coatings on glass by PVD process is non-uniform film owing to pin-hole and micro crack. It is estimated that nonuniform coating is influenced by a different surface energy between metal nitrides and glass due to binding states. In this work, therefore, for the evaluation of nucleation and growth mechanism of nitride films on glass TiN and CrN film were synthesized on glass with various nitrogen partial pressure by unbalanced magnetron sputtering. Prior to deposition, for the examination of relationship between surface energy and film microstructure plasma pre-treatment process was carried out with various argon to hydrogen flow rate and substrate bias voltage, duty cycle and frequency by using pulsed DC power supply. Surface energy owing to the different plasma pre-treatment was calculated by the measurement of wetting angle and surface conditions of glass were investigated by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy(XPS) and Atomic Force Microscope(AFM). The microstructure change of nitride films on glass with increase of film thickness were analyzed by X-Ray Diffraction(XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy(SEM).

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.93-98
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• 2001

YMnO$_3$ films are excellent gate dielectric materials of ferroelectric random access memories (FRAMs) with MFSFET (metal -ferroelectric-semiconductor field effect transistor) structure because YMnO$_3$ films can be deposited directly on Si substrate and have a relatively low permittivity. Although the patterning of YMnO$_3$ thin films is the requisite for the fabrication of FRAMs, the etch mechanism of YMnO$_3$ thin films has not been reported. In this study, YMnO$_3$thin films were etched with Cl$_2$/Ar gas chemistries in inductively coupled plasma (ICP). The maximum etch rate of YMnO$_3$ film is 285$\AA$/min under Cl$_2$/(Cl$_2$+Ar) of 1.0, RF power of 600 W, dc-bias voltage of -200V, chamber pressure of 15 mTorr and substrate temperature of $25^{\circ}C$. The selectivities of YMnO$_3$ over CeO$_2$ and $Y_2$O$_3$ are 2.85, 1.72, respectively. The selectivities of YMnO$_3$ over PR and Pt are quite low. Chemical reaction in surface of the etched YMnO$_3$ thin films was investigated with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) surface of the selected YMnO$_3$ thin films was investigated with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS) and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). The etch profile was also investigated by scaning electron microscopy(SEM)

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 1999.07a
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• pp.135-135
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• 1999

It is well known that Raman spectroscopy is powerful tool in analysis of sp3/sp3 bonding fraction in diamond-like carbon(DLC) films. Raman spectra of DLC film is composed of D-peak centered at 1350cm-1 and G-peak centered at 1530cm-1. The sp3/sp3 fraction is qualitatively acquired by deconvolution method. However, in case of DLC film, it is generally observed that G-peak position shifts toward low wavenumber as th sp3 fraction increases. However, opposite results were frequently observed in ta-C films. ta-C film has much higher residual compressive stress due to its high sp3 fraction compared to the DLC films deposited by CVD method. Effect of residual stress on G-peak position is most recommendable parameter in Raman analysis of ta-C, due to its smallest fitting error among many parameters acquired by peak deconvolution of symmetric spectra. In current study, the effect of residual stress on Raman spectra was quantitatively evaluated by free-hang method. ta-C films of different residual stress were deposited on Si-wafer by modifying DC-bias voltage during deposition. The variation of the G-peak position along the etching depth were observed in the free-hangs of 20~30${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ etching depth. Mathematical result based on Airy stress function, was compared with experimental results. The more reliable analysis excluding stress-induced shift was possible by elimination of the Raman shift due to residual compressiove stress.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.43 no.1 s.343
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• pp.143-148
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• 2006

This paper presents a high isolation and power-handling single-pole double-throw(SPDT) switch for dual band wireless LAN applications. The switch circuit has asymmetric topology which uses stacked-gate to have high power-handling and isolation for the Tx path. The proposed SPDT switch has been designed with optimum gate-width, bias, and number of stacked-gate FET. This SPDT switch has been implemented with $0.25{\mu}m$ GaAs pHEMT process which has Gmmax of 500mS/mm and fmax of 150GHz. The designed SPDT switch has the measured insertion loss of better than 0.9dB and isolation of better than 40dB for the Tx path and 25dB for the Rx path and the high power handling capability with PldB of about 23dBm for control voltage of -3/0V. The fabricated SPDT switch chip size is $1.8mm{\times}1.8mm$.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1996.07c
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• pp.1446-1449
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• 1996

Thin films of diamond-like carbon(DLC) have been deposited using a magnetron plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition(PECVD) method with an rf(13.56 MHz) plasma of $C_{3}H_{8}$. From the Langmuir probe I-V characteristics, it can be observed that increasing the magnetic field yields an increase of the temperature($T_e$) and density($N_e$) of electron. At a magnetic field of 82 Gauss, the estimated values of $T_e$ and $N_e$ are approximately $1.5\;{\times}\;10^5$ K(13.5 eV) and $1.3\;{\times}\;10^{11}\;cm^{-3}$, respectively. Such a highly dense plasma can be attributed to the enhanced ionization caused by the cyclotron motion of electrons in the presence of a magnetic field. On the other hand, the negative dc self-bias voltage($-V_{sb}$) decreases with an increasing magnetic field, which is irrespective of gas pressure in the range of $1{\sim}7$ mTorr. This result is well explained by a theoretical model considering the variation of $T_e$. Deposition rates of DLC films increases with a magnetic field. This may be due to the increased mean free path of electrons in the magnetron plasma. Structures of DLC films are examined by using various techniques such as FTIR and Raman spectroscopy. Most of hydrocarbon bonds in DLC films prepared consist of $sp^3$ tetrahedral bonds. Increasing the rf power leads to an enhancement of cross-linking of carbon atoms in DLC films. At approximately 140 W, the maximum film density obtained is about 2.4 $g/cm^3$.