• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.78-79
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• 2007

In this study, chemical dry characteristics of silicon nitride layers were investigated in the $F_2/N_2/Ar$ remote plasma. A toroidal-type remote plasma source was used for the generation of remote plasmas. The effects of additive $N_2$ gas on the etch rates of various silicon nitride layers deposited using different deposition techniques and precursors were investigated by varying the various process parameters, such as the $F_2$ flow rate, the addition $N_2$ flow rate and the substrate temperature. The etch rates of the various silicon nitride layers at the room temperature were initially increased and then decreased with the $N_2$ flow increased, which indicates an existence of the maximum etch rates. The etch rates of the silicon oxide layers were also significantly increased with the substrate temperature increased. In the present experiments the $F_2$ gas flow, addition $N_2$ flow rate and the substrate temperature were found to be the critical parameters in determining the etch rate of the silicon nitride layers

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.498-504
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• 2006

The etch rates of photoresist (PR) and the etch selectivity of $SiO_2$ to PR in a high density $CHF_3$ plasma were investigated at different ion-incident angles and bias voltages. A Faraday cage was employed for the accurate control of ion-incident angles. The ion energy was controlled by changing bias voltages. The etch rate of $SiO_2$ continuously decreased with ion-incident angles but the etch rate of PR remained constant up to the middle angle region and decreased afterwards. The etch rates of $SiO_2$ normalized to those at $0^{\circ}$ incident angle changed with the ion-incident angle following a cosine(${\theta}$) curve. On the other hand, the normalized etch rates of the PR changed showing a drastic over-cosine shape in the middle angle region. The etch selectivity of $SiO_2$ to PR decreased with an increase in the ion-incident angle because the etch yields of PR were enhanced by physical sputtering in the middle angle region compared to the case of $SiO_2$ etching. The etch selectivity of $SiO_2$ to PR decreased with an increase in the bias voltage at nearly all ion-incident angles.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.113-118
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• 2002

We developed engineering methods to control gas flow in a plasma reactor in order to achieve good etch depth uniformity for large area GaAs etching. Finite difference numerical method was found quite useful for simulation of gas flow distribution in the reactor for dry etching of GaAs. The experimental results in $BCl_3/N_2/SF_6/He$ ICP plasmas confirmed that the simulated data fitted very well with real data. It is noticed that a focus ring could help improve both gas flow and etch uniformity for 150 mm diameter GaAs plasma etch processing. The simulation results showed that optimization of clamp configuration could decrease gas flow uniformity as low as $\pm$ 1.5% on an 100 mm(4 inch) GaAs wafer and $\pm$ 3% for a 150 m(6 inch) wafer with the fixed reactor and electrode, respectively. Comparison between simulated gas flow uniformity and real etch depth distribution data concluded that control of gas flow distribution in the chamber would be significantly important in order or achieve excellent dry etch uniformity of large area GaAs wafers.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.15-22
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• 2007

We present the morphological evolution at different source powers in the ion-enhanced etching of GaAs(100) in $BCl_3-Cl_2$ plasma. With little ion bombardment at floating potential, the surface develops <110< ridges and {111} facets, as it does in purely chemical etching. The morphology develops in less than 1 minute and grows bigger over time. The etched surfaces show different morphologies at different source powers with constant pressures of gases. Lowe. source power (100 W) produces poorly developed crystallographic surfaces while higher source power (900 W) produces well developed crystallographic surfaces. This is attributed to the availability of excited reactive species(chlorine atoms) depending on source powers. With more concentration of the reactive species at higher source powers, the surface of GaAs(100) would be a surface that is expected from thermodynamics while the surface morphology would be determined by sputtering in the lack of reactive species. Statistical analysis of the surfaces, based on scaling theory, revealed two spatial exponents: one(smaller than one) is formed by atomic scale mechanisms, the other(larger than one) is formed by larger scale mechanisms which is believed to develop facets.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.250-261
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• 2007

We present the morphological evolution at different source powers in the ion-enhanced etching of GaAs(100) in $BCl_3-Cl_2$ plasma. With little ion bombardment at floating potential, the surface develops <110> ridges and {111} facets, as it does in purely chemical etching. Higher source power (900 W) produces well developed crystallographic surfaces while lower source power (100 W) produces poorly developed crystallographic surfaces. This is attributed to the availability of excited reactive species (chlorine atoms) depending on source powers. With more concentration of the reactive species at higher source powers, the surface of GaAs(100) would be a surface that is expected from thermodynamics while the surface morphology would be determined by sputtering in the lack of reactive species. Statistical analysis of the surfaces, based on scaling theory, revealed two spatial exponents: one (smaller than one) is formed by atomic scale mechanisms, the other (larger than one) is formed by larger scale mechanisms which is believed to develop facets. When samples are biased, the surfaces experienced bombardment resulting in suppression of ridge formation at high source power and islands formation at low source power.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics D
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• v.36D no.2
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• pp.41-47
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• 1999

In this paper, we report 3D-simulations of a plasma etching process by employing cell-removal algorithm takes into account the mask shadow effect os well as spillover errors. The developed simulator haas an input interface to take not only an analytic form but a Monte Carlo distribution of the ions. The graphic user interface(GUI) was also built into the simulator for UNIX environment. To demonstrate the capability of 3D-SURFILER(SURface proFILER), we have simulated for a typical contact hole structure with 36,000($30{\times}40{\times}30$) cells, which takes about 20 minutes with 10 Mbytes memory on sun ultra sparc 1. as an exemplary case, we calculated the etch profile during the reactive ion etching(RIE) of a contact hole wherein the aspect ratio is 1.57. Furthermore, we also simulated the dependence of a damage parameter and the evolution of topography as a function of the chamber pressure and the incident ion flux.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2001.05b
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• pp.8-11
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• 2001

In this study. the recovery of plasma induced damage in the etched PZT thin film with $O_2$ re-annealing have been investigated. The PZT thin films were etched as a function of $Cl_2/Ar$ and additive $CF_4$ into $Cl_{2}(80%)/Ar(20)%$. The etch rates of PZT thin films were $1600\dot{A}/min$ at $Cl_{2}(80%)/Ar(20)%$ gas mixing ratio and $1970\dot{A}/min$ at 30 % additive $CF_4$ into $Cl_{2}(80%)/Ar(20)%$. The etched profile of PZT films was obtained above 70 by SEM. In order to recovery properties of PZT thin films after etching, the etched PZT thin films were re-annealed at various temperatures in $O_2$ atmosphere. From the hysteresis curves, ferroelectrical properties are improved by $O_2$ re-annealing process. The improvement of ferroelectric behavior at annealed sample is consistent with the increase of the (100) and (200) PZT phase revealed by x-ray diffraction (XRD). From XPS analysis, intensity of Pb-O, Zr-O and Ti-O peak are increased and the chemical residue peak is reduced by $O_2$ re-annealing. The ferroelectric behavior consistent with the dielectric nature of TixOy is recovered by $O_2$ recombination during rapid thermal annealing process. From AFM images, it shows that the surface roughness of re-annealed sample after etching is improved.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.76-79
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• 2005

Dry etching of NiFe, NiFeCo, and Ta for magnetic random access memory (MRAM) by inductively coupled plasmas (ICPs) of $Cl_2/Ar$ has been carried out. NiFe and NiFeCo showed maximum etch rates at a particular ICP source power, but the etch rate of Ta increased with the ICP source power. The etch rates of the magnetic thin films increased with the RF chuck power, but decreased with the operating pressure and the $Cl_2$ concentration. To avoid a corrosion problem by chlorine, the etched samples were rinsed with de-ionized water for 5 minutes after etching. The etch profile showed a clean and smooth surface at 50% $Cl_2$ concentration.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.701-709
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• 2011

In semiconductor wafer fabrication, etching is one of the most critical processes, by which a material layer is selectively removed. Because of difficulty to correct a mistake caused by over etching, it is critical that etch should be performed correctly. This paper proposes a new approach for etch endpoint detection of small open area wafers. The traditional endpoint detection technique uses a few manually selected wavelengths, which are adequate for large open areas. As the integrated circuit devices continue to shrink in geometry and increase in device density, detecting the endpoint for small open areas presents a serious challenge to process engineers. In this work, a high-resolution optical emission spectroscopy (OES) sensor is used to provide the necessary sensitivity for detecting subtle endpoint signal. Partial Least Squares (PLS) method is used to analyze the OES data which reduces dimension of the data and increases gap between classes. Support Vector Machine (SVM) is employed to detect endpoint using the data after PLS. SVM classifies normal etching state and after endpoint state. Two data sets from OES are used in training PLS and SVM. The other data sets are used to test the performance of the model. The results show that the trained PLS and SVM hybrid algorithm model detects endpoint accurately.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.103-107
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• 2003

The inductively coupled plasma(ICP) etching process was selected to fabricate RF Surface Acoustic Wave(SAW) filters and a Pt thin film was sputtered on a $LiTaO_3$ substrate applied to electrode materials to reduce the spurious response and improve the power durability. Steep sidewall pattern was achieved employing $C_4F_8/Ar/Cl_2$ gas chemistry. We investigated an etching mechanism and parameter dependence of the Pt thin film about $C_4F_8$ addition. Sidewall etch angle was about $80^{\circ}$ at the $C_4F_8$ 20% mixing ratio. Fabricated SAW filter is consists of some series and parallel arm SAW resonators which work as impedance elements and show capacitance characteristics at out of the passband. It can be modified for $800{\sim}900\;MHz$ RF filters. External matching circuits were unnecessary.