• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.32-38
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• 2004

Laser-induced thermochemical wet etching of titanium in phosphoric acid has been investigated to examine the feasibility of this method fur fabrication of microstructures. Cutting, drilling, and milling of titanium foil were carried out while examining the influence of process parameters on etch width, etch depth, and edge straightness. Laser power, scanning speed of workpiece, and etchant concentration were chosen as major process parameters influencing on temperature distribution and reaction rate. Etch width increased almost linearly with laser power showing little dependence on scanning speed while etch depth showed wide variation with both laser power and scanning speed. A well-defined etch profile with good surface quality was obtained at high concentration condition. Fabrication of a hole, micro cantilever beam, and rectangular slot with dimension of tess than 100${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ has been demonstrated.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.8 no.4B
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• pp.541-547
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• 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 the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.393-397
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• 2002

Polyimide (PI) films have been studied widely as the interlayer dielectric materials due to a low dielectric constant, low water absorption, high gap-fill and planarization capability. The polyimide film was etched using inductively coupled plasma system. The etcying characteristics such as etch rate and selectivity were evaluated at different $CF_4/(CF_4+O_2)$chemistry. The maximum etch rate was 8300 ${\AA}/min$ and the selectivity of polyimide to SiO$_2$was 5.9 at $CF_4/(CF_4+O_2)$ of 0.2. Etch profile of polyimide film with an aluminum pattern was measured by a scanning electron microscopy. The vertical profile was approximately $90^{\circ}$ at $CF_4/(CF_4+O_2)$ of 0.2. As 20% $CF_4$ were added into $O_2$ plasma from the results of the optical emission spectroscopy, the radical densities of fluorine and oxygen increased with increasing $CF_4$ concentration in $CF_4/O_2$ from 0 to 20%, resulting in the increased etch rate. The surface reaction of etched PI films was investigated using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.709-713
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• 2018

To improve the etch rate of $Si_3N_4$ thin film, $H_2SiF_6$ is added to increase etching rate by more than two times. $SiO_3H_2$ is gradually added to obtain a selectivity of 170: 1 at 600 ppm. Moreover, when $SiO_3H_2$ is added, the etching rate of the $SiO_2$ thin film increases in proportion to the radius of the wafer. In $Si_3N_4$ thin film, there is no difference in the etching rate according to the position. However, in the $SiO_2$ thin film, the etching rate increases in proportion to the radius. At the center of the wafer, the re-growth phenomenon is confirmed at a specific concentration or above. The difference in etch rates of $SiO_2$ thin films and the reason for regrowth at these positions are interpreted as the result of the flow rate of the chemical solution replaced with fresh solution.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.9-14
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• 2004

In this study, Si anisotropic etching characteristics of tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH)/ ammonium persulfate(AP)/isopropyl alcohol(IPA) solutions were investigated to realize the optimum structure of a diaphragm for the piezoresistive pressure sensor application. Due to its low toxicity and its high compatibility with the CMOS processing, TMAH was used as Si anisotropic etchants. The variations of Si etch rate on the etching temperature, TMAH concentration, and etching time were obtained. With increasing the etching temperature and decreasing TMAH concentrations, the Si etch rate is increased while a significant non-unifonnity exists on the etched surface because of formation of hillocks on the (100) surface. The addition of IPA to TMAH solution leads to smoother etched surfaces but, makes the Si etch rate lower. However, with the addition of AP to TMAH solution, the Si etch rate is increased and an improvement in flatness on the etching front is observed. The Si etch rate is also maximized with increasing the number of addition of AP to TMAH solution per one hour. The Si square membranes of 20${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ thickness and l00-400${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ one-side length were fabricated successfully by applying optimum Si etching conditions of TMAH/AP solutions.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.261-266
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• 1998

In developing the high density memory device, the etching of fine pattern is becoming increasingly important. Therefore, definition of ultra fine line and space pattern and minimization of damage and contamination are essential process. Also, the high density plasma in low operating pressure is necessary. The candidates of high density plasma sources are electron cyclotron resonance plasma, helicon wave plasma, helical resonator, and inductively coupled plasma. In this study, planar type magnetized inductively coupled plasma etcher has been built. The density and temperature of Ar plasma are measured as a function of rf power, flow rate, external magnetic field, and pressure. The oxide etch rate and selectivity to polysilicon are measured as the above mentioned conditions and self-bias voltage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.363-363
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• 2008

The development of dry etching process for sapphire wafer with plasma has been key issues for the opto-electric devices. The challenges are increasing control and obtaining low plasma induced-damage because an unwanted scattering of radiation is caused by the spatial disorder of pattern and variation of surface roughness. The plasma-induced damages during plasma etching process can be classified as impurity contamination of residual etch products or bonding disruption in lattice due to charged particle bombardment. Therefor, fine pattern technology with low damaged etching process and high etch rate are urgently needed. Until now, there are a lot of reports on the etching of sapphire wafer with using $Cl_2$/Ar, $BCl_3$/Ar, HBr/Ar and so on [1]. However, the etch behavior of sapphire wafer have investigated with variation of only one parameter while other parameters are fixed. In this study, we investigated the effect of pressure and other parameters on the etch rate and the selectivity. We selected $BCl_3$ as an etch ant because $BCl_3$ plasmas are widely used in etching process of oxide materials. In plasma, the $BCl_3$ molecule can be dissociated into B radical, $B^+$ ion, Cl radical and $Cl^+$ ion. However, the $BCl_3$ molecule can be dissociated into B radical or $B^+$ ion easier than Cl radical or $Cl^+$ ion. First, we evaluated the etch behaviors of sapphire wafer in $BCl_3$/additive gases (Ar, $N_2,Cl_2$) gases. The behavior of etch rate of sapphire substrate was monitored as a function of additive gas ratio to $BCl_3$ based plasma, total flow rate, r.f. power, d.c. bias under different pressures of 5 mTorr, 10 mTorr, 20 mTorr and 30 mTorr. The etch rates of sapphire wafer, $SiO_2$ and PR were measured with using alpha step surface profiler. In order to understand the changes of radicals, volume density of Cl, B radical and BCl molecule were investigated with optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The chemical states of $Al_2O_3$ thin films were studied with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and depth profile anlysis of auger electron spectroscopy (AES). The enhancement of sapphire substrate can be explained by the reactive ion etching mechanism with the competition of the formation of volatile $AlCl_3$, $Al_2Cl_6$ or $BOCl_3$ and the sputter effect by energetic ions.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.498-504
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• 2006

The etch rates of photoresist (PR) and the etch selectivity of $SiO_2$ to PR in a high density $CHF_3$ plasma were investigated at different ion-incident angles and bias voltages. A Faraday cage was employed for the accurate control of ion-incident angles. The ion energy was controlled by changing bias voltages. The etch rate of $SiO_2$ continuously decreased with ion-incident angles but the etch rate of PR remained constant up to the middle angle region and decreased afterwards. The etch rates of $SiO_2$ normalized to those at $0^{\circ}$ incident angle changed with the ion-incident angle following a cosine(${\theta}$) curve. On the other hand, the normalized etch rates of the PR changed showing a drastic over-cosine shape in the middle angle region. The etch selectivity of $SiO_2$ to PR decreased with an increase in the ion-incident angle because the etch yields of PR were enhanced by physical sputtering in the middle angle region compared to the case of $SiO_2$ etching. The etch selectivity of $SiO_2$ to PR decreased with an increase in the bias voltage at nearly all ion-incident angles.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.464-464
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• 2010

A few years ago, for maintaining high stability and production yield of production equipment in a semiconductor fab, on-line monitoring of wafers is required, so that semiconductor manufacturers are investigating a software based process controlling scheme known as virtual metrology (VM). As semiconductor technology develops, the cost of fabrication tool/facility has reached its budget limit, and reducing metrology cost can obviously help to keep semiconductor manufacturing cost. By virtue of prediction, VM enables wafer-level control (or even down to site level), reduces within-lot variability, and increases process capability, $C_{pk}$. In this research, we have practiced VM on $SiO_2$ etch rate with optical emission spectroscopy(OES) data acquired in-situ while the process parameters are simultaneously correlated. To build process model of $SiO_2$ via, we first performed a series of etch runs according to the statistically designed experiment, called design of experiments (DOE). OES data are automatically logged with etch rate, and some OES spectra that correlated with $SiO_2$ etch rate is selected. Once the feature of OES data is selected, the preprocessed OES spectra is then used for in-situ sensor based VM modeling. ICP-RIE using 葰.56MHz, manufactured by Plasmart, Ltd. is employed in this experiment, and single fiber-optic attached for in-situ OES data acquisition. Before applying statistical feature selection, empirical feature selection of OES data is initially performed in order not to fall in a statistical misleading, which causes from random noise or large variation of insignificantly correlated responses with process itself. The accuracy of the proposed VM is still need to be developed in order to successfully replace the existing metrology, but it is no doubt that VM can support engineering decision of "go or not go" in the consecutive processing step.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.15 no.10
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• pp.844-850
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• 2002

Linearly graded profiles on the field area oxide are frequently used in power integrated circuits to reduce the surface electric field when power devices are operated in forward or reverse blocking modes. It is shown here that tapered windows can be made using the difference of etch rates between the bottom and the top layer of TEOS film. Annealed TEOS films are etched at a lower rate than the TEOS film without annealing Process. The fast etching layer results in window walls having slopes in the range of 25$^{\circ}$∼ 80$^{\circ}$ with respect to the wafer surface. Taper etching technique by annealing the TEOS film applies to high voltage LDMOS, which is compatible with CMOS process, due to the minimum changes in both of design rules and thermal budget.