• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.433-440
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• 1998

The purpose of this study is to provide an integrated process control system for plasma etching. The control system is designed to employ neural network for the modeling of plasma etching process and to utilize genetic algorithm to search for the appropriate selection of control input variables, and to provide a control chart to maintain the process output within a desired range in the real plasma etching process. The target equipment is the one operating in DRAM production lines. The result shows that the integrated system developed is practical value in the improved performance of plasma etching process.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.842-849
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• 2004

The objective of this work is to study the improvement of etching characteristics in wet etching process. The etching characteristics such as etching factor were investigated under different etching conditions and compared with the spray characteristics. The spray characteristics of nozzle with different geometries such as swirler angle and swirl chamber aspect ratio were analyzed by using PDA system to predict the effect of the spray characteristics on the etching factor. The swirler angles were 49,5$^{\circ}$, 63$^{\circ}$ and 76.5$^{\circ}$. The swirl chamber aspect ratios were 1.2, 1.6 and 2.0. It was found that the etching factor was correlated with the spray characteristics and also the smaller swiller angle, the larger etching factor became.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.160-160
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• 2008

In practical etching process, etch ant is sprayed on the metal-deposited panel through nozzles collectively connected to the manifold and that panel is usually composed of many PCB(printed circuit board)'s. The etching uniformity, the difference between individual PCB's on the same panel, has become one of most important features of etching process. In this paper, the prediction of nozzle trajectory has been performed by the combination of algebraic formula and numerical simulation. With the pre-determined geometrical factors of nozzle distribution, the trajectories of individual nozzles were predicted with the change of process operational factors such as panel speed, nozzle swing frequency and so on. As results, two dimensional distribution of impulsive force of etchant spray which could be considered as a key factor determining the etching performance have been successfully obtained. Though only qualitative prediction of etching uniformity have been predicted by the process developed in this study, the expansion to the quantitative prediction of etching uniformity is expected to be apparent by this study.

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.774-779
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• 1995

Process optimization experiments based on the Taguchi method were performed in order to set up the optimal process conditions for the contact oxide etching process module which was built in order to be attached to the cluster system of multi-processing purpose. In order to compare with Taguchi method, the contact oxide etching process carried out with different process parameters(CHF$_{3}$/CF$_{4}$ gas flow rate, chamber pressure, RF power and magnetic field intensity). Optimal etching characteristics were evaluated in terms of etch rate, selectivity, uniformity and etched profile. In this paper, as a final analysis of experimental results the optimal etching characteristics were obtained at the process conditions of CHF3/CF4 gas flow rate = 72/8 sccm, chamber pressure = 50 mTorr, RF power = 500 watts, and magnetic field intensity = 90 gauss.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.49 no.10
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• pp.797-804
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• 2011

In this study, the mechanisms of the three steps (the polymer deposition step, the polymer etching step and the Si etching step) that constitute the Bosch process were investigated. The effects of radicals and ions on each step were quantitatively analyzed by comparing the simulated aspect ratio dependency of the deposition or etch rate with the experimental results. In the polymer deposition step, fluorocarbon polymer is deposited by chemical reactions of $CF_x$ radicals, of which the reaction probability is 0.13. Although the polymer etching step and the Si etching step were conducted under the same conditions, the etching mechanisms of polymer and Si were found to be quite different. In the polymer etching step, both chemical etching and physical sputter-etching contribute to the polymer etching. Whereas, in the Si etching step, Si is chemically etched by F radicals, of which the reactivity is greatly increased by the bombardment of energetic ions.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.236-243
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• 2004

The oxide etching process was characterized in a magnetically enhanced reactive ion etching (MERIE) reactor with a $CHF_3CF_4$ gas chemistry. A statistical experimental design plus one center point was used to characterize relationships between process factors and etch response. The etch response modeled are etch rate, etch selectivity to TiN and uniformity. Etching uniformity was improved with increasing $CF_4$ flow ratio, increasing source power, and increasing pressure depending on source power. Characterization of via etching in $CHF_3CF_4$ MERIE using neural networks was successfully executed giving to highly valuable information about etching mechanism and optimum etching condition. It was found that etching uniformity was closely related to surface polymerization, DC bias, TiN and uniformity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.171-172
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• 2006

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.259-259
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• 2008

The LTCC (Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic) technology meets the requirements for high quality microelectronic devices and microsystems application due to a very good electrical and mechanical properties, high reliability and stability as well as possibility of making integrated three dimensional microstructures. The wet process, which has been applied to the etching of the metallic thin film on the ceramic substrate, has multi process steps such as lithography and development and uses very toxic chemicals arising the environmental problems. The other side, Plasma technology like ion beam sputtering is clean process including surface cleaning and treatment, sputtering and etching of semiconductor devices, and environmental cleanup. In this study, metallic multilayer pattern was fabricated by the ion beam etching of Ti/Pd/Cu without the lithography. In the experiment, Alumina and LTCC were used as the substrate and Ti/Pd/Cu metallic multilayer was deposited by the DC-magnetron sputtering system. After the formation of Cu/Ni/Au multilayer pattern made by the photolithography and electroplating process, the Ti/Pd/Cu multilayer was dry-etched by using the low energy-high current ion-beam etching process. Because the electroplated Au layer was the masking barrier of the etching of Ti/Pd/Cu multilayer, the additional lithography was not necessary for the etching process. Xenon ion beam which having the high sputtering yield was irradiated and was used with various ion energy and current. The metallic pattern after the etching was optically examined and analyzed. The rate and phenomenon of the etching on each metallic layer were investigated with the diverse process condition such as ion-beam acceleration energy, current density, and etching time.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.77-77
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• 2011

These days, a growing demand for memory device is filled up with the flash memory and the dynamic random access memory (DRAM). Although DRAM is a reasonable solution for current demand, the universal novel memory with high density, high speed and nonvolatility, needs to be developed. Among various new memories, the magnetic random access memory (MRAM) device is considered as one of good candidate memories because of excellent features including high density, high speed, low operating power and nonvolatility. The etching of MTJ stack which is composed of magnetic materials and insulator such as MgO is one of the vital process for MRAM. Recently, MgO has attracted great interest in the MTJ stack as tunneling barrier layer for its high tunneling magnetoresistance values. For the successful realization of high density MRAM, the etching process of MgO thin films should be investigated. Until now, there were some works devoted to the investigations on etch characteristics of MgO thin films. Initially, ion milling was applied to the etching of MgO thin films. However, ion milling has many disadvantages such as sidewall redeposition and etching damage. High density plasma etching containing the magnetically enhanced reactive ion etching and high density reactive ion etching have been employed for the improvement of etching process. In this work, inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching (ICPRIE) system was adopted for the improvement of etching process using MgO thin films and etching gas mixes of $CH_4$/Ar and $CH_4$/$O_2$/Ar have been employed. The etch rates are measured by a surface profilometer and etch profiles are observed using field emission scanning emission microscopy (FESEM). The effects of gas concentration and etch parameters such as coil rf power, dc-bias voltage to substrate, and gas pressure on etch characteristics will be systematically explored.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.07a
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• pp.416-417
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• 2005

In this study, we optimized the process of Si anisotropy etching by combing tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH) etching process with ultrasonic wave technology. New ultrasonic TMAH etching apparatus was developed and it was used for fabricating a $20{\mu}m$ thick diaphragm for Si piezoresistive pressure sensors. Based on comparison study on etch rate and surface flatness, it was observed that the Si anisotropy etching methode with new ultrasonic TMAH etching apparatus (at 40 kHz/ 500 watt) was superior to conventional etching methods with TMAH or TMAH+ammonium persulfate(AP) solutions.