• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.18 no.8
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• pp.44-50
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• 2019

CMP is the most critical process in the manufacture of silicon wafers, and the use of retaining rings, which are consumable parts used in CMP equipment, is increasingly important. Since the retaining ring is made of plastic, it is not only weak in strength but also has the problem of taking a long time for the flattening operation of the ring itself performed before the CMP process, and of the imbalance of force due to bolt tightening causing uneven wear. In order to solve this problem, the retaining ring and the insert ring are integrally used, and the flatness of the retaining ring may be affected depending on the material of the insert ring. Also, the residual stress generated in the manufacturing process of the insert ring may cause distortion of the ring, which may adversely affect the precision polishing. In this study, when the insert ring is made of Zn or STS304, the thickness variation and the flatness of the retaining ring are compared and, finally, the material removal rate is analyzed by polishing the wafer by the oxide CMP process. Through these experiments, the effects of the insert ring material on the polishing accuracy of the wafers were investigated.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.72-75
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• 2023

Carbon neutrality has been emerged as important mission for all the manufacturing industry to reduce energy usage and carbon emission equivalent. Korean semiconductor and display manufacturing industries are also in huge interest by minimize the energy usage as well as to find a less global warming product gases in both etch and cleaning. In addition, Korean government is also investing long term research and development plan for the safe environment in various ways. In this paper, we revisit previous research activities on carbon emission equivalent and current research activities performed in semiconductor process diagnosis research center at Myongji University with respect to the reduction of NF3 usage for the PECVD chamber cleaning, and we present the analytical result of the exhaust gas with residual gas analysis in both 6 inches and 12 inches PECVD equipment. The presented result can be a reference study of the development of new substitution gas in near future to compare the cleaning rate of the silicon oxide deposition chamber.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.528-537
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• 2008

60 nm and 20 nm thick hydrogenated amorphous silicon(a-Si:H) layers were deposited on 200 nm $SiO_2$/single-Si substrates by inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition(ICP-CVD). Subsequently, 30 nm-Ni layers were deposited by an e-beam evaporator. Finally, 30 nm-Ni/(60 nm and 20 nm) a-Si:H/200 nm-$SiO_2$/single-Si structures were prepared. The prepared samples were annealed by rapid thermal annealing(RTA) from $200^{\circ}C$ to $500^{\circ}C$ in $50^{\circ}C$ increments for 40 sec. A four-point tester, high resolution X-ray diffraction(HRXRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy(FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy(TEM), and scanning probe microscopy(SPM) were used to examine the sheet resistance, phase transformation, in-plane microstructure, cross-sectional microstructure, and surface roughness, respectively. The nickel silicide from the 60 nm a-Si:H substrate showed low sheet resistance from $400^{\circ}C$ which is compatible for low temperature processing. The nickel silicide from 20 nm a-Si:H substrate showed low resistance from $300^{\circ}C$. Through HRXRD analysis, the phase transformation occurred with silicidation temperature without a-Si:H layer thickness dependence. With the result of FE-SEM and TEM, the nickel silicides from 60 nm a-Si:H substrate showed the microstructure of 60 nm-thick silicide layers with the residual silicon regime, while the ones from 20 nm a-Si:H formed 20 nm-thick uniform silicide layers. In case of SPM, the RMS value of nickel silicide layers increased as the silicidation temperature increased. Especially, the nickel silicide from 20 nm a-Si:H substrate showed the lowest RMS value of 0.75 at $300^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.16-22
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• 2008

We fabricated thermally-evaporated 10 nm-Ni/30 nm and 70 nm Poly-Si/200 nm-$SiO_2/Si$ structures to investigate the thermal stability of nickel silicides formed by rapid thermal annealing(RTA) of the temperature of $300{\sim}1100^{\circ}C$ for 40 seconds. We employed for a four-point tester, field emission scanning electron microscope(FE-SEM), transmission electron microscope(TEM), high resolution X-ray diffraction(HRIXRD), and scanning probe microscope(SPM) in order to examine the sheet resistance, in-plane microstructure, cross-sectional microstructure evolution, phase transformation, and surface roughness, respectively. The silicide on 30 nm polysilicon substrate was stable at temperature up to $900^{\circ}C$, while the one on 70 nm substrate showed the conventional $NiSi_2$ transformation temperature of $700^{\circ}C$. The HRXRD result also supported the existence of NiSi-phase up to $900^{\circ}C$ for the Ni silicide on the 30 nm polysilicon substrate. FE-SEM and TEM confirmed that 40 nm thick uniform silicide layer and island-like agglomerated silicide phase of $1{\mu}m$ pitch without residual polysilicon were formed on 30 nm polysilicon substrate at $700^{\circ}C\;and\;1000^{\circ}C$, respectively. All silicides were nonuniform and formed on top of the residual polysilicon for 70 nm polysilicon substrates. Through SPM analysis, we confirmed the surface roughness was below 17 nm, which implied the advantage on FUSI gate of CMOS process. Our results imply that we may tune the thermal stability of nickel monosilicide by reducing the height of polysilicon gate.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.459-465
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• 2014

In this study, Si-SiC composites were fabricated using a Si melt infiltration method using ${\beta}$-SiC/C composite powders synthesized by the carbothermal reduction of $SiO_2-C$ precursors made from a TEOS and a phenol resin. The purity of the synthesized SiC-C composite powders was higher than 99.9993 wt% and the average particle size varied from 4 to $6{\mu}m$ with increasing carbon contents of the $SiO_2-C$ precursors. It was found that the Si-SiC composites fabricated in this study consist of ${\beta}$-SiC and residual Si, without any trace of ${\alpha}$-SiC. The 3-point bending strengths of the fabricated Si-SiC composites were measured and found to be higher than 550 MPa, although the density of the fabricated Si-SiC composite was less than $2.9g/cm^3$. The bending strengths and the densities of the fabricated Si-SiC composites were found to decrease with increasing C/Si mole ratios in the SiC-C composite powders. The specific resistivities of the Si-SiC composites fabricated using the SiC-C composite powders were less than $0.018{\Omega}cm$. With increasing C content in the SiC-C composite powders used for the fabrication of Si-SiC composites, the specific resistivity of the Si-SiC composites was found to slightly increase from 0.0157 to $0.018{\Omega}cm$.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.39 no.10
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• pp.948-954
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• 2002

Porous reaction bonded SiC with high fracture strength was developed using Si melt infiltration method for use of the support layer in high temperature gas filter that is essential to develop the next generation power system such as integrated gasification combined cycle system. The porosity and pore size of porous RBSC developed in this study were in the range of 32∼36% and 37∼90 ${\mu}m$ respectively and the maximum fracture strength of porous RBSC fabricated was 120 MPa. The fracture strength and thermal shock resistance of porous RBSC fabricated by Si melt infiltration were much improved compared to those of commercially available porous clay bonded SiC due to the formation of the strong SiC/Si interface between SiC particles. The characteristics of pore structure of porous RBSC was varied depending on the amounts of residual Si as Well as the size of SiC particle used in green body.

• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.173-180
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• 2012

SiC particles, 8.3 ${\mu}m$ in volume average diameter, were chlorinated in an alumina tubular reactor, 2.4 cm in diameter and 32 cm in length, with reactor temperature varied from 100 to $1200^{\circ}C$. The flow rate of the gas admitted to the reactor was held constant at 300 cc/min, the mole fraction of chlorine in the gas at 0.1 and the reaction time at 4 h. The chlorination was negligibly small up to the temperature of $500^{\circ}C$. Thereafter, the degree of chlorination increased remarkably with increasing temperature until $900^{\circ}C$. As the temperature was increased further from 900 to $1200^{\circ}C$, the increments in chlorination degree were rather small. At $1200^{\circ}C$, the chlorination has nearly been completed. The surface area of the residual carbon varied with chlorination temperature in a manner similar to that with the variation of chlorination degree with temperature. The surface area at $1200^{\circ}C$ was 912 $m^{2}/g$. A simple model was developed to predict the conversion of a SiC under various conditions. A Langmuir-Hinshelwood type rate law with two rate constants was employed in the model. Assuming that the two rate constants, $k_{1}$ and $k_{2}$, can be expressed as $A_{1e}^{-E_{1}/RT}$ and $A_{2e}^{-E_{2}/RT}$, the four parameters, $A_{1}$, $E_{1}$, $A_{2}$, and $E_{2}$ were determined to be 32.0 m/min, 103,071 J/mol, 2.24 $m^{3}/mol$ and 39,526 J/mol, respectively, through regression to best fit experimental data.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1507-1510
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• 2005

This study was carried out as a part of the research on the development of a maskless and electroless process for fabricating metal micro/nanostructures by using a nanoindenter and an electroless deposition technique. $2-\mu{m}-deep$ indentation tests on Ni and Cu samples were performed. The elastic recovery of the Ni and Cu was 9.30% and 9.53% of the maximum penetration depth, respectively. The hardness and the elastic modulus were 1.56 GPa and 120 GPa for Ni and 1.49 GPa and 100 GPa for Cu. The effect of single-point diamond machining conditions such as the Berkovich tip orientation (0, 45, and $90^{\circ}$) and the normal load (0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 1, 3, and 5 mN), on both the deformation behavior and the morphology of cutting traces (such as width and depth) was investigated by constant-load scratch tests. The tip orientation had a significant influence on the coefficient of friction, which varied from 0.52-0.66 for Ni and from 0.46-0.61 for Cu. The crisscross-pattern sample showed that the tip orientation strongly affects the surface quality of the machined area during scratching. A selective deposition of Cu at the pit-like defect on a p-type Si(111) surface was also investigated. Preferential deposition of the Cu occurred at the surface defect sites of silicon wafers, indicating that those defect sites act as active sites for the deposition reaction. The shape of the Cu-deposited area was almost the same as that of the residual stress field.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.335-335
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• 2011

Instability of a thin film attached to a compliant substrate often leads to emergence of exquisite wrinkle patterns with length scales that depend on the system geometry and applied stresses. However, the patterns that are created using the current techniques in polymer surface engineering, generally have low aspect ratio of undulation amplitude to wavelength, thus, limiting their application. Here, we present a novel and effective method that enables us to create wrinkles with a desired wavelength and high aspect ratio of amplitude over wavelength as large as to 2.5:1. First, we create buckle patterns with high aspect ratio of amplitude to wavelength by deposition of an amorphous carbon film on a surface of a soft polymer poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS). Amorphous carbon films are used as a protective layer in structural systems and biomedical components, due to their low friction coefficient, strong wear resistance against, and high elastic modulus and hardness. The deposited carbon layer is generally under high residual compressive stresses (~1 GPa), making it susceptible to buckle delamination on a hard substrate (e.g. silicon or glass) and to wrinkle on a flexible or soft substrate. Then, we employ glancing angle deposition (GLAD) for deposition of a high aspect ratio patterns with amorphous carbon coating on a PDMS surface. Using this method, pattern amplitudes of several nm to submicron size can be achieved by varying the carbon deposition time, allowing us to harness patterned polymers substrates for variety of application. Specifically, we demonstrate a potential application of the high aspect wrinkles for changing the surface structures with low surface energy materials of amorphous carbon coatings, increasing the water wettability.

• Korean Journal of Crystallography
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.111-117
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• 1995

TiO2 thin films were prepared on a (100)silicon wafer using a chemical vapor deposition(CVD) method. The deposition experiments were performed using the TTIP in the deposition temperature ransing from 200 content. The deposition rate of TiO2 was increased with the substrate temperature and the oxygen content. The thickness of the deposited thin film and the compositional analysis of this thin films with theoxygen content were measured using Ellipsometry, SEM and ESCA, respectively. The deposited thin film was composed of a bilayer, external TiO2 and internal Ti. Carbon as a residual impurity was found to remain when zero sccm O2 was purged into a reaction chamber and the composition of the deposited thin film was found to change Ti into TiO in a deeper layer. However, when 600sccm O2 was supplied to a reaction chamber, it has been found to reside less carbon content than without O2. Finally, in the condition of 1200sccm O2, no impurity level of carbon was observed and a deeper layer consisted of the Ti composite, even though the deposited surface was composed of TiO2.