• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.05b
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• pp.74-77
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• 2002

Ferroelectric Random Access Memory(FRAM) and MEMS applications require noble metal or refractory metal oxide electrodes. In this study, Ru thin films were etched using $O_2$+10% $CF_4$ plasma in an inductively coupled plasma(ICP) etching system. The etch rate of Ru thin films was examined as function of rf power, DC bias applied to the substrate. The enhanced etch rate can be obtained not only with increasing rf power and DC bias voltage, but also with small addition $CF_4$ gas. The selectivity of $SiO_2$ over Ru are 1.3. Radical densities of oxygen and fluorine in $CF_4/O_2$ plasma have been investigated by optical emission spectroscopy(OES). The etching profiles of Ru films with an photoresist pattern were measured by a field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM). The additive gas increases the concentration of oxygen radicals, therefore increases the etch rate of the Ru thin films and enhances the etch slope. In $O_2$+10% $CF_4$ plasma, the etch rate of Ru thin films increases up to 10% $CF_4$ but decreases with increasing $CF_4$ mixing ratio.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.133-138
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• 1999

Research on the etching reaction of UO$_2$ with CF$_4$/O$_2$gas mixture plasma is carried out. The reaction rates are investigated as a function of CF$_4$/O$_2$ ratio, plasma power, and substrate temperature. It is found that there exists an optimum CF$_4$/O$_2$ ratio around 4:1 at all temperatures up to 37$0^{\circ}C$ and surface analysis using XPS X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy) confirms the result. Peak rate at the optimum gas composition increases with increasing temperature. Highest rate obtained in this study leaches 1050 monolayers/min. at 37$0^{\circ}C$ under r. f. power of 150 W, which is equivalent to about 0.5${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$/min. The rate also increases with increasing r. f. power, thus, higher power and higher substrate temperature will undoubtedly raise the etching reaction rate much further. This reaction seems to be an activated process, whose activation energy will be derived in the following experiments.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.29-32
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• 2004

This work was devoted to an investigation of etching mechanisms for $(Ba,Sr)TiO_3$ (BST) thin films in inductively coupled $CF_4/Ar$ plasma. We have found that an increase of the Ar content in $CF_4/Ar$ plasma causes non-monotonic behavior of BST etch rate, which reaches a maximum value of 40 nm/min at 80% Ar. Langmuir probe measurements show a weak sensitivity of both electron temperature and electron density to the change of $CF_5/Ar$ mixing ratio. O-D model for plasma chemistry gave monotonic changes of both volume densities and fluxes for active species responsible for the etching process. The analysis of surface kinetics confirms the possibility of non-monotonic etch rate behavior due to the concurrence of physical and chemical pathways in ion-assisted chemical reaction.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.08a
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• pp.922-925
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• 2007

In the usual dry etching process for the TFT-LCD fabrication, it is hard to monitor the basic plasma parameters such as density and temperature. However, the basic parameters are easily monitored during the dry etching process. We have simultaneously measured the electric characteristics and basic plasma parameters of the dry etching chamber during the process, analyzed them to interpret plasma parameters. For the Ar plasma discharge case, we could obtain the density and temperature from the electric characteristics using a simple simple sheath model.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.564-568
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• 2003

The etching of Au thin films have been performed in an inductively coupled CF$_4$/Cl$_2$/Ar plasma. The etch rates were measured as CF$_4$ contents added from 0 to 30 % to Cl$_2$/Ar plasma, of which gas mixing ratio was fixed at 20%. Other parameters were fixed at an rf power of 700 W, a dc bias voltage of 150 V, a chamber pressure of 15 mTorr, and a substrate temperature of 3$0^{\circ}C$. The highest etch rate of the Au thin film was 3700 $\AA$m/min at a 10% additive CF$_4$ into Cl$_2$/Ar plasma. The surface reaction of the etched Au thin films was investigated using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. XPS analysis indicated that Au reacted with Cl and formed Au-Cl, which is hard to remove on the surface because of its high melting point. The etching products could be sputtered by Ar ion bombardment.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.293-299
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• 2020

W₂C is synthesized through a reaction-sintering process from an ultrafine-W and WC powder mixture using spark plasma sintering (SPS). The effect of various parameters, such as W:WC molar ratio, sintering temperature, and sintering time, on the synthesis behavior of W₂C is investigated through X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis of the microstructure, and final sintered density. Further, the etching properties of a W₂C specimen are analyzed. A W₂C sintered specimen with a particle size of 2.0 ㎛ and a relative density over 98% could be obtained from a W-WC powder mixture with 55 mol%, after SPS at 1700℃ for 20 min under a pressure of 50 MPa. The sample etching rate is similar to that of SiC. Based on X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis, it is confirmed that fluorocarbon-based layers such as C-F and C-F2 with lower etch rates are also formed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.213-213
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• 2010

Magnetic random access memory (MRAM), based on magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) and CMOS, is one of the best semiconductor memories because it can provide nonvolatility, fast access time, unlimited read/write endurance, low operating voltage and high storage density. For the realization of high density MRAM, the etching of MTJ stack with good properties is one of a key process. Recently, there has been great interest in the MTJ stack using MgO as barrier layer for its huge room temperature MR ratio. The use of MgO barrier layer will undoubtedly accelerate the development of MTJ stack for MRAM. In this study, high-density plasma reactive ion etching of MgO films was investigated in an inductively coupled plasma of $Cl_2$/Ar gas mixes. The etch rate, etch selectivity and etch profile of this magnetic film were examined on vary gas concentration. As the $Cl_2$ gas concentration increased, the etch rate of MgO monotonously decreased and etch slop was slanted. The effective of etch parameters including coil rf power, dc-bais voltage, and gas pressure on the etch profile of MgO thin film was explored, At high coil rf power, high dc-bais voltage, low gas pressure, the etching of MgO displayed better etch profiles. Finally, the clean and vertical etch sidewall of MgO films was achieved using $Cl_2$/Ar plasma at the optimized etch conditions.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.7-12
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• 2023

The edge ring placed on the outside of the electrostatic chuck (ESC) is a key component for protecting the ESC and controlling the etching uniformity of the edge of the wafer. Therefore, it is very important to understand the etching phenomenon of edge rings for edge ring management and equipment homeostasis. In this study, a specimen with SiO₂ hard mask and underlying Si mold was installed on the edge ring surface and the etching results were measured by varying the edge ring 2MHz RF power. By developing PI-VM model with high prediction accuracy and analyzing the roles of key parameters in the model, we were able to evaluate the effect of plasma and sheath characteristics around the edge ring on edge ring erosion. This analysis method provided information necessary for edge ring maintenance and operation.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.74-79
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• 2022

In this study, the plasma corrosion resistance and the change in the number of contamination particles generated using the plasma etching process and cleaning process of coating parts for semiconductor plasma etching equipment were investigated. As the coating method, atmospheric plasma spray (APS) was used, and the powder materials were Y₂O₃ and Y₃Al₅O₁₂ (YAG). There was a clear difference in the densities of the coatings due to the difference in solubility due to the melting point of the powdered material. As a plasma environment, a mixed gas of CF₄, O₂, and Ar was used, and the etching process was performed at 200 W for 60 min. After the plasma etching process, a fluorinated film was formed on the surface, and it was confirmed that the plasma resistance was lowered and contaminant particles were generated. We performed a surface cleaning process using piranha solution(H₂SO₄(3):H₂O₂(1)) to remove the defect-causing surface fluorinated film. APS-Y₂O₃ and APS-YAG coatings commonly increased the number of defects (pores, cracks) on the coating surface by plasma etching and cleaning processes. As a result, it was confirmed that the generation of contamination particles increased and the breakdown voltage decreased. In particular, in the case of APS-YAG under the same cleaning process conditions, some of the fluorinated film remained and surface defects increased, which accelerated the increase in the number of contamination particles after cleaning. These results suggest that contaminating particles and the breakdown voltage that causes defects in semiconductor devices can be controlled through the optimization of the APS coating process and cleaning process.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.664-667
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• 1997

For higher component density per chip, it is necessary to identify and control the semiconductor manufacturing process more stringently. Recently, neural networks have been identified as one of the most promising techniques for modeling and control of complicated processes such as plasma etching process. Since wafer states after each run using identical recipe may differ from each other, conventional neural network models utilizing input factors only cannot represent the actual state of process and equipment. In this paper, in addition to the input factors of the recipe, real-time tool data are utilized for modeling of 64M DRAM s-poly plasma etching process to reflect the actual state of process and equipment. For real-time tool data, we collect optical emission spectroscopy (OES) data. Through principal component analysis (PCA), we extract principal components from entire OES data. And then these principal components are included to input parameters of neural network model. Finally neural network model is trained using feed forward error back propagation (FFEBP) algorithm. As a results, simulation results exhibit good wafer state prediction capability after plasma etching process.