• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.271-275
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• 2008

The MAM(Megasonic Agitated Module) has been fabricated for improving the characteristics of wet etching. The characteristics of the MAM are investigated during the wet etching with and without megasonic agitation in this paper. The adoption of the MAM has improved the characteristics of wet etching, such as the etch rate, etch uniformity, and surface roughness. Especially, the etching uniformity on the entire wafer was less than ${\pm}1%$ in both cases of Si and glass. Generally, the initial root-mean-square roughness($R_{rms}$) of the single crystal silicon was 0.23nm. Roughnesses of 566nm and 66nm have been achieved with magnetic stirring and ultrasonic agitation, respectively, by some researchers. In this paper, the roughness of the etched Si surface is less than 60 nm. Wet etching of silicon with megasonic agitation can maintain nearly the original surface roughness during etching. The results verified that megasonic agitation is an effective way to improve etching characteristics of the etch rate, etch uniformity, and surface roughness and that the developed micromachining system is suitable for the fabrication of devices with complex structures.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.11 no.4 s.33
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• pp.81-86
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• 2004

A new method to improve the wet etching characteristics is described. The anisotropic wet-etching of (100) Si with megasonic wave has been studied in KOH solution. Etching characteristics of p-type (100) 6 inch Si have been explored with and without megasonic irradiation. It has been observed that megasonic irradiation improves the characteristics of wet etching such as an etch uniformity and surface roughness. The etching uniformity on the whole wafer with and without megasonic irradiation were less than ${\pm}1\%$ and more than $20\%$, respectively. The initial root-mean-square roughness($R_{rms}$) of single crystal silicon is 0.23 nm. It has been reported that the roughnesses with magnetic stirring and ultrasonic agitation were 566 nm and 66 nm, respectively. Comparing with the results, etching with megasonic irradiation achieved the Rrms of 1.7 nm on the surface after the $37{\mu}m$ of etching depth. Wet etching of silicon with megasonic irradiation can maintain nearly the original surface roughness after etching process. The results have verified that the megasonic irradiation is an effective way to improve the etching characteristics such as etch uniformity and surface roughness.