Specific Process Knowledge/Etch/DRIE-Pegasus/processB

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Process B

Process B is labelled Via (30μm diameter) 100μm depth. In the acceptance test the process was run on a 150 mm SPTS wafer with 12-13 % etch load.

Process B specifications
Parameter Specification Average result
Etch rate (µm/min) > 10 10.7
Etched depth (µm) 100 107
Scallop size (nm) < 800 685
Profile (degs) 91 +/- 1 90.7
Selectivity to AZ photoresist > 100 183
Undercut (µm) <1.5 0.89
Uniformity (%) < 3.5 2.7
Repeatability (%) <4 0.47



Process B recipe
Main etch (D->E) Etch Dep
Gas flow (sccm) SF6 350 O2 35 C4F8 200
Cycle time (secs) 7.0 4.0
Pressure (mtorr) 20 (1.5 s) 100 25
Coil power (W) 2800 2000
Platen power (W) 130 (1.5) 40 0
Cycles 55 (process time 10:05)
Common Temperature 10 degs, HBC 10 torr, Short funnel, with baffle & 5mm spacers


Experiment with process B performance

Purpose

Perhaps the most commonly occuring question posed by users of the dry etch tools is something like ' I want to etch my trenches down to a depth of 40 microns, how long should I etch?'. The answer is that it depends on the width of the trench and on the etch load of your design (that is how many percent of the wafer it etched).

An experiment has been set up to investigate the etched depth of a number of different trenches (with widths ranging from 2 microns to 300 microns) as a function of etch load (the exposed area ranges from 5 % to 65 %)

Results

A number of wafers are patterned with the Travka mask set in 4 microns of AZ photoresist. The wafers are then etched using two different durations of process B in the DRIE-Pegasus.

Wafers
Wafer number Mask Process B duration
2 Travka 05 17 cycles, 3:07 mins
3 Travka 05 34 cycles, 6:14 mins
5 Travka 10 17 cycles, 3:07 mins
6 Travka 10 34 cycles, 6:14 mins
8 Travka 20 17 cycles, 3:07 mins
9 Travka 20 34 cycles, 6:14 mins
Wafers
Wafer number Mask Process B duration
11 Travka 35 17 cycles, 3:07 mins
12 Travka 35 34 cycles, 6:14 mins
14 Travka 50 17 cycles, 3:07 mins
15 Travka 50 34 cycles, 6:14 mins
17 Travka 65 17 cycles, 3:07 mins
18 Travka 65 34 cycles, 6:14 mins


After etching each wafer is cleaved in two places: Both cleavage lines run across the A-line fields. This produces three sites on each wafer where the depth of the trenches can be determined using an SEM.