• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2012.02a
• /
• pp.328-329
• /
• 2012

$SF_6$ gas는 반도체 및 디스플레이 제조공정 중 Dry etch과정에서 널리 사용되는 gas로 자연적으로 존재하는 것이 아닌 사용 목적에 맞춰 인위적으로 제조된 gas이다. 디스플레이 산업에서 $SF_6$ gas가 사용되는 Dry etch 공정은 주로 ${\alpha}$-Si, $Si_3N_4$ 등 Si계열의 박막을 etch하는데 사용된다. 이러한 Si 계열의 박막을 식각하기 위해서는 fluorine, Chlorine 등이 사용된다. fluorine계열의 gas로는 $SF_6$ gas가 대표적이다. 하지만 $SF_6$ gas는 대표적인 온실가스로 지구 온난화의 주범으로 주목받고 있다. 세계적으로 온실가스의 규제에 대한 움직임이 활발하고, 대한민국은 2020년까지 온실가스 감축목표를 '배출전망치(BAU)대비 30% 감축으로' 발표하였다. 따라서 디스플레이 및 반도체 공정에는 GWP (Global warming Potential)에 적용 가능한 대체 가스의 연구가 필요한 상황이다. 온실가스인 $SF_6$를 대체하기 위한 방법으로 GWP가 낮은 $C_3F_6$가스를 이용하여 $Si_3N_4$를 Dry etching 방법인 RIE (Reactive Ion Etching)공정을 한 후 배출되는 가스를 측정하였다. 4인치 P-type 웨이퍼 위에 PECVD (Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition)장비를 이용하여 $Si_3N_4$를 200 nm 증착하였고, Photolithography공정을 통해 Patterning을 한 후 RIE공정을 수행하였다. RIE는 Power : 300 W, Flow rate : 30 sccm, Time : 15 min, Temperature : $15^{\circ}C$, Pressure : Open과 같은 조건으로 공정을 수행하였다. 그리고 SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope)장비를 이용하여 Etching된 단면을 관찰하여 단차를 확인하였다. 또한 Etching 전후 배출가스를 포집하여 GC-MS (Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrophotometry)를 측정 및 비교하였다. Etching 전의 경우에는 $N_2$, $O_2$ 등의 가스가 검출되었고, $C_3F_6$ 가스를 이용해 etching 한 후의 경우에는 $C_3F_6$ 계열의 가스가 검출되었다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.35 no.6
• /
• pp.507-514
• /
• 2003

Recently dry decontamination/surface-cleaning technology using plasma etching has been focused in the nuclear industry. In this study, the applicability of this new dry processing technique are experimentally investigated by examining the etching reaction of $UO_2$, Co, and Mo in r.f. plasma with the etchant gas of $CF_4/O_2$ mixture. $UO_2$ is chosen as a representing material for uranium and TRU (TRans-Uranic) compounds while metallic Co and Mo are selected because they are the principal contaminants in the used metallic nuclear components such as valves and pipes made of stainless steel or inconel. Results show that in all cases maximum etching rate is achieved when the mole fraction of $UO_2\;in\;CF_4/O_2$ mixture gas is $20\%$, regardless of temperature and r.f. power. In case of $UO_2$, the highest etching reaction rate is greater than 1000 monolayers/min. at $370^{\circ}C$ under 150 W r.f. power which is equivalent to $0.4{\mu}m/min$. As for Co, etching reaction begins to take place significantly when the temperature exceeds $350^{\circ}C$. Maximum etching rate achieved at $380^{\circ}C\;is\;0.06{\mu}m/min$. Mo etching reaction takes place vigorously even at relatively low temperature and the reaction rate increases drastically with increasing temperature. Highest etching rate at $380^{\circ}C\;is\;1.9{\mu}m/min$. According to OES (Optical Emission Spectroscopy) and AES (Auger Electron Spectroscopy) analysis, primary reaction seems to be a fluorination reaction, but carbonyl compound formation reaction may assist the dominant reaction, especially in case of Co and Mo. Through this basic study, the feasibility and the applicability of plasma decontamination technique are demonstrated.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.307-312
• /
• 2014

We present a full finite element analysis for plasma discharge in etching process of semiconductor circuit. The charge transport equations of hydrodynamic diffusion-drift model and the electric field equation were numerically solved in a fully coupled system by using a standard finite element procedure for transient analysis. The proposed method was applied to a real plasma reactor in order to characterize the plasma sheath that is closely related to the yield of the etching process. Throughout the plasma discharge analysis, the base electrode of reactor was tested and modified for improving the uniformity around the wafer edge. The experiment and numerical results were examined along with SEM data of etching quality. The feasibility and usefulness of the proposed method was shown by both numerical and experimental results.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.245-250
• /
• 2006

In this paper, glass cap wafer for MEMS device package is fabricated by using sand blaster dry etcher and Its surface is studied. The surface of dry etched glass is analyzed by using SEM, and many glass particles and micro cracks are observed. If these kind of particles were dropped from glass to the surface of device, It would make critical failure to the operation of device. So, several cleaning and etching methods are induced to remove these kinds of dormant failure mode and optimized condition is found out.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.13 no.10
• /
• pp.635-639
• /
• 2003

We investigated dry etching of GaAs and AiGaAs in a high density planar inductively coupled plasma system with BCl$_3$and BCl$_3$/Ar gas chemistry. A detailed etch process study of GaAs and ALGaAs was peformed as functions of ICP source power, RIE chuck power and mixing ratio of $BCl_3$ and Ar. Chamber process pressure was fixed at 7.5 mTorr in this study. The ICP source power and RIE chuck power were varied from 0 to 500 W and from 0 to 150 W, respectively. GaAs etch rate increased with the increase of ICP source power and RIE chuck power. It was also found that etch rates of GaAs in $15BCi_3$/5Ar plasmas were relatively high with applied RIE chuck power compared to pure 20 sccm $BCl_3$plasmas. The result was the same as AlGaAs. We expect that high ion-assisted effect in $BCl_3$/Ar plasma increased etch rates of both materials. The GaAs and AlGaAs features etched at 20 sccm $BCl_3$and $15BCl_3$/5Ar with 300 W ICP source power, 100 W RIE chuck power and 7.5 mTorr showed very smooth surfaces(RMS roughness < 2 nm) and excellent sidewall. XPS study on the surfaces of processed GaAs also proved extremely clean surfaces of the materials after dry etching.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2003.07a
• /
• pp.31-36
• /
• 2003

We investigated dry etching of GaAs and AlGaAs in a high density planar inductively coupled plasma system with $BCl_3$ and $BCl_3/Ar$ gas chemistry. A detailed process study as a function of ICP source power, RIE chuck power and $BCl_3/Ar$ mixing ratio was performed. At this time, chamber pressure was fixed at 7.5 mTorr. The ICP source power and RIE chuck power were varied from 0 to 500 W and from 0 to 150 W, respectively. GaAs etch rate increased with the increase of ICP source power and RE chuck power. It was also found that etch rate of GaAs in $BCl_3$ gas with 25% Ar addition was superior to that of GaAs in a pure $BCl_3$ (20 sccm $BCl_3$) plasma. The result was same with AlGaAs. We expect that high ion-assisted effect in $BCl_3$/Ar plasma increased etch rates of both materials. The GaAs and AIGaAs features etched at 20 sccm $BCl_3$ and $15BCl_3/5Ar$ with 300 W ICP source power, 100 W RIE chuck power and 7.5 mTorr showed very smooth surfaces(RMS roughness < 2 nm) and excellent sidewall. XPS study on the surfaces of processed GaAs also proved extremely clean surfaces of the materials after dry etching.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2012.02a
• /
• pp.459-459
• /
• 2012

Recently, the discharge of global warming gases in dry etching process of TFT-LCD display industry is a serious issue because perfluorocarbon compound (PFC) gas causes global warming effects. PFCs including CF4, C2F6, C3F8, CHF3, NF3 and SF6 are widely used as etching and cleaning gases. In particular, the SF6 gas is chemically stable compounds. However, these gases have large global warming potential (GWP100 = 24,900) and lifetime (3,200). In this work, we chose C3F6O gas which has a very low GWP (GWP100 = <100) and lifetime (< 1) as a replacement gas. This study investigated the effects of the gas flow ratio of C3F6O/O2 and process pressure in dual-frequency capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) etcher on global warming effects. Also, we compared global warming effects of C3F6O gas with those of SF6 gas during dry etching of a patterned positive type photo-resist/silicon nitride/glass substrate. The etch rate measurements and emission of by-products were analyzed by scanning electron Microscopy (SEM; HITACI, S-3500H) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR; MIDAC, I2000), respectively. Calculation of MMTCE (million metric ton carbon equivalents) based on the emitted by-products were performed during etching by controlling various process parameters. The evaluation procedure and results will be discussed in detail.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.1-5
• /
• 2008

In this paper, we fabricated pressure difference type gas flow sensor using only dry etching technology by ICP-RIE(inductive coupled plasma reactive ion etching). The sensor's structure consists of a common shear stress type piezoresistive pressure sensor with an orifice fabricated in the middle of the sensor diaphragm. Generally, structure like diaphragm is fabricated by wet etching technology using TMAH, but we fabricated diaphragm by only dry etching using ICP-RIE. To equalize the thickness of diaphragm we applied insulator($SiO_2$) layer of SOI(Si/$SiO_2$/Si-sub) wafer as delay layer of dry etching. Size of fabricated diaphragm is $1000{\times}1000{\times}7\;{\mu}m^3$ and overall chip $3000{\times}3000{\times}7\;{\mu}m^3$. We measured the variation of output voltage toward the change of gas pressure to analyze characteristics of the fabricated sensor. Sensitivity of fabricated sensor was relatively high as about 1.5mV/V kPa at 1kPa full-scale. Nonlinearity was below 0.5%F.S. Over-pressure range of the fabricated sensor is 100kPa or more.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
• /
• v.14 no.5
• /
• pp.220-225
• /
• 2004

Four different Fluorine-based gases ($SF_6/,NF_3, PF_5,\; and \; BF_3$) were examined for high rate Inductively Coupled Plasma etching of Si. Etch rates up to ~8$\mu\textrm{m}$/min were achieved with pure $SF_6$ discharges at high source power (1500 W) and pressure (35 mTorr). A direct comparison of the four feedstock gases under the same plasma conditions showed the Si etch rate to increase in the order $BF_3$ < $NF_3$< $PF_5$ < $SF_6$. This is in good correlation with the average bond energies of the gases, except for $NF_3$, which is the least strongly bound. Optical emission spectroscopy showed that the ICP source efficiently dissociated $NF_3$, but the etched Si surface morphologies were significantly worse with this gas than with the other 3 gases.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.11-16
• /
• 2002

In this study, the dry etching characteristics of $SrBi_2Ta_2O_9$ (SBT) thin films were investigated by using ICP-RIE (inductively coupled plasma-reactive ion etching). The etching damage and degradation were analyzed with XPS (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy) and C-V (Capacitance-Voltage) measurement. The etching rate increased with increasing the ICP power and the capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) power. The etch rate of 900$\AA$/min was obtained with 700 W of ICP power and 200 W of CCP power. The main problem of dry etching is the degradation of the ferroelectric material. The damage-free etching characteristics were obtained with the $Ar/C1_2/CHF_3$ gas mixture of 20/14/2 when the ICP power and CCP power were biased at 700 W and 200 W, respectively. The experimental results show that the dry etching process with ICP-RIE is applicable to the fabrication of the single transistor type ferroelectric memory device.