• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2011.02a
• /
• pp.167-167
• /
• 2011

Magnetic random access memory (MRAM) is one of the prospective semiconductor memories for next generation. It has the excellent features including nonvolatility, fast access time, unlimited read/write endurance, low operating voltage, and high storage density. MRAM consists of magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) stack and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS). The MTJ stack is composed of various magnetic materials, metals, and a tunneling barrier layer. For the successful realization of high density MRAM, the etching process of magnetic materials should be developed. Among various magnetic materials, FePt has been used for pinned layer of MTJ stack. The previous etch study of FePt magnetic thin films was carried out using $CH_4/O_2/NH_3$. It reported only the etch characteristics with respect to the variation of RF bias powers. In this study, the etch characteristics of FePt thin films have been investigated using an inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etcher in various etch chemistries containing $CH_4$/Ar and $CH_4/O_2/Ar$ gas mixes. TiN thin film was employed as a hard mask. FePt thin films are etched by varying the gas concentration. The etch characteristics have been investigated in terms of etch rate, etch selectivity and etch profile. Furthermore, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy is applied to elucidate the etch mechanism of FePt thin films in $CH_4$/Ar and $CH_4/O_2/Ar$ chemistries.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
• /
• v.8 no.4B
• /
• pp.541-547
• /
• 1999

Reactive ion etching process for InP using BCl3/O2/Ar high density inductively coupled plasma was investigated. The experimental design method proposed by the Taguchi was utilized to cover the whole parameter range while maintaining reasonable number of actual experiments. Results showed that the ICP power and the chamber pressure were the two dominant parameters affectsing etch results. It was also observed that the etch rate decreased and the surface roughness improved as the ICP power and the bias voltage increased and as the chamber pressure decreased. The Addition of oxygen to the gas mixture drastically improved surface roughness by suppressing the formation of the surface reaction product. The optimum condition was ICP power 600W, bias voltage -100V, 10% $O_2$, 6mTorr, and $180^{\circ}C$, resulting in about 0.15$\mu\textrm{m}$ etch rate with smooth surfaces and vertical mesa sidewalls Also, the maximum etch rate of abut 4.5 $\mu\textrm{m}$/min was obtained at the condition of ICP power 800W, bias voltage -150V, 15% $O_2$, 8mTorr and $160^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.197-201
• /
• 2007

The magnetron reactive ion etching (RIE) characteristics of polycrystalline (poly) 3C-SiC grown on $SiO_{2}$/Si substrate by APCVD were investigated. Poly 3C-SiC was etched by $CHF_{3}$ gas, which can form a polymer as a function of side wall protective layers, with additive $O_{2}$ and Ar gases. Especially, it was performed in magnetron RIE, which can etch SiC at a lower ion energy than a commercial RIE system. Stable etching was achieved at 70 W and the poly 3C-SiC was undamaged. The etch rate could be controlled from $20\;{\AA}/min$ to $400\;{\AA}/min$ by the manipulation of gas flow rates, chamber pressure, RF power, and electrode gap. The best vertical structure was improved by the addition of 40 % $O_{2}$ and 16 % Ar with the $CHF_{3}$ reactive gas. Therefore, poly 3C-SiC etched by magnetron RIE can expect to be applied to M/NEMS applications.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• v.53 no.3
• /
• pp.349-353
• /
• 2016

We prepared a number of reaction-bonded silicon carbides (RBSCs) made from various mixing ratios of raw SiC particles, and investigated their microstructure and etch characteristics by Reactive Ion Etch (RIE). Increasing the amount of $9.5{\mu}m$-SiC particles results in a microstructure with relatively coarser Si regions. On the other hand, increasing that of $2.6{\mu}m$-SiC particles produces much finer Si regions. The addition of more than 50 wt% of $2.6{\mu}m$-SiC particles, however, causes the microstructure to become partially coarse. We also evaluated their etching behaviors in terms of surface roughness (Ra), density and weight changes, and microstructure development by employing Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope (CLSM) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) techniques. During the etching process of the prepared samples, we confirmed that the residual Si region was rapidly removed and formed pits isolating SiC particles as islands. This leads to more intensified ion field on the SiC islands, and causes physical corrosion on them. Increased addition of $2.6{\mu}m$-SiC particles produces finer residual Si region, and thus decreases the surface roughness (Ra.) as well as causing weight loss after etching process by following the above etching mechanism.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society Of Semiconductor Equipment Technology
• /
• 2007.06a
• /
• pp.183-187
• /
• 2007

The magnetron reactive ion etching (RIE) characteristics of polycrystalline (poly) 3C-SiC grown on $SiO_2$/Si substrate by APCVD were investigated. Poly 3C-SiC was etched by $CHF_3$ gas, which can form a polymer as a function of side wall protective layers, with additive $O_2$ and Ar gases. Especially, it was performed in magnetron RIE, which can etch SiC at lower ion energy than a commercial RIE system. Stable etching was achieved at 70 W and the poly 3C-SiC was undamaged. The etch rate could be controlled from $20\;{\AA}/min$ to $400\;{\AA}/min$ by the manipulation of gas flow rates, chamber pressure, RF power, and electrode gap. The best vertical structure was improved by the addition of 40 % $O_2$ and 16 % Ar with the $CHF_3$ reactive gas. Therefore, poly 3C-SiC etched by magnetron RIE can expect to be applied to M/NEMS applications.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.10-14
• /
• 2015

This paper reports the results of a study on the optimization of the etching profile, which is an important factor in deep-reactive-ion etching (DRIE), i.e., dry etching. Dry etching is the key processing step necessary for the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and various microelectromechanical sensors (MEMS). Large-area etching (open area > 20%) under a high-frequency (HF) condition with nonoptimized processing parameters results in damage to the etched sidewall. Therefore, in this study, optimization was performed under a low-frequency (LF) condition. The HF method, which is typically used for through-silicon via (TSV) technology, applies a high etch rate and cannot be easily adapted to processes sensitive to sidewall damage. The optimal etching profile was determined by controlling various parameters for the DRIE of a large Si wafer area (open area > 20%). The optimal processing condition was derived after establishing the correlations of etch rate, uniformity, and sidewall damage on a 6-in Si wafer to the parameters of coil power, run pressure, platen power for passivation etching, and $SF_6$ gas flow rate. The processing-parameter-dependent results of the experiments performed for optimization of the etching profile in terms of etch rate, uniformity, and sidewall damage in the case of large Si area etching can be summarized as follows. When LF is applied, the platen power, coil power, and $SF_6$ should be low, whereas the run pressure has little effect on the etching performance. Under the optimal LF condition of 380 Hz, the platen power, coil power, and $SF_6$ were set at 115W, 3500W, and 700 sccm, respectively. In addition, the aforementioned standard recipe was applied as follows: run pressure of 4 Pa, $C_4F_8$ content of 400 sccm, and a gas exchange interval of $SF_6/C_4F_8=2s/3s$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 1999.07a
• /
• pp.65-65
• /
• 1999

Dry etching technique provides more easy controllability on the etch profile such as anisotropic etching than wet etching process and the results of lots of researches on the characterization of various plasmas or ion beams for semiconductor etching have been reported. Chlorine-based plasmas or chlorine ion beam have been often used to etch several semiconductor materials, in particular Si-based materials. We have studied the effect of He flow rate on the Si and SiO2 dry etching using chlorine-based plasma. Experiments were performed using reactive ion etching system. RF power was 300W. Cl2 gas flow rate was fixed at 58.6 sccm, and the He flow rate was varied from 0 to 120 sccm. Fig. 1 presents the etch depth of si layer versus the etching time at various He flow rate. In case of low He flow rate, the etch rate was measured to be negligible for both Si and SiO2. As the He flow increases over 30% of the total inlet gas flow, the plasma state becomes stable and the etch rate starts to increase. In high Ge flow rate (over 60%), the relation between the etch depth and the time was observed to be nearly linear. Fig. 2 presents the variation of the etch rate depending on the He flow rate. The etch rate increases linearly with He flow rate. The results of this preliminary study show that Cl2/He mixture plasma is good candidate for the controllable si dry etching.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.7-14
• /
• 2002

In this paper, neutral networks are used to build models of oxide film etched In CHF$_3$/CF$_4$ with a magnetically enhanced reactive ion etcher(MERIE). A statistical 2$\^$4-1/ experimental design plus one center point was used to characterize relationships between process factors and etch responses. The factors that were varied include radio frequence(rf) power, pressure, CHF$_3$ and CF$_4$ flow rates. Resultant 9 experiments were used to train neural networks and trained networks were subsequently tested on its appropriateness using additionally conducted 8 experiments. A total of 17 experiments were thus conducted for this modeling. The etch responses modeled are dc bias voltage, etch rate and etch uniformity A qualitative, good agreement was obtained between predicted and observed behaviors.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.6-12
• /
• 2000

In this study, molybdenum thin films were etched with Cl\ulcorner/(Cl\ulcorner+SF\ulcorner) gas mixing ratio in an magneti-cally enhanced reactive ion etching(MERIE) by the etching parameters such as rf power of 250 watts, chamber pressure of 100 mTorr and B-field of 30 gauss. The etch rate was 150nm/min under Cl\ulcorner/(Cl\ulcorner+SF\ulcorner) gas mixing ratio of 0.25. At this time, the selectivity of Mo to SiO\ulcorner, photoresist were respectively 0.94, 0.05. The surface reaction of the etched Mo thin films was investigated with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS). It was analyzed that Mo peaks was mainly observed in Mo-O bonds formed MoO\ulcorner compounds and F was detected in Mo-F and O-F bonds. Cl peaks were detected by the peak of Cl 2p\ulcorner in Cl-Mo bonds of MoCl\ulcorner or MoO\ulcornerCl\ulcorner formulas. Almost all of both Cl and S atoms had been com-bined with Mo, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.17 no.7
• /
• pp.724-728
• /
• 2004

This paper describes on RIE(Reactive Ion Etching) characteristics of 3C-SiC(Silicon Carbide) grown on Si(100) wafers. In this work, CHF$_3$ gas was used to form the polymer as a function of a side-wall for excellent anisotropy etching during the RIE process. The ranges of the etch rate were obtained from 60 $\AA$/min to 980 $\AA$/min according to the conditions such as working gas pressure, RF power, distance between electrodes and the $O_2$ addition ratio in working gas pressure. Under the condition such as 100 mTorr of working gas pressure, 200 W of RF power and 30 mm of the distance between electrodes, mesa structures with about 40 of the etch angle were formed, and the vertical structures could be improved with 50 % of $O_2$ addition ratio in reactive gas during the RIE process. As a result of the investigation, we know that it is possible to apply the RIE process of 3C-SiC using CHF$_3$ for the development of electronic parts and MEMS applications in harsh environments.