Specific Process Knowledge/Etch/Etching of Polymer/Etch of Photo Resist using RIE

For a general introduction to RIE at Danchip see RIE (Reactive Ion Etch)

Etching of polymer using RIE should only be done if you have no other options. The reason for this is that we want to keep our RIE's as clean as possible. However it can be used for stripping your resist after an etch if you need to keep your sample clean or you need to remove a very thin layer of resist before a RIE etch - like a descum. The process for etching away photoresist or other polymers involves an O2 plasma.Our standard cleaning recipe has been tested for a load of 50% resist on a wafer.

Some RIE recipes for etching of silicon nitride:

Name	O2 flow	N2 flow	Pressure	Power
clean05	99 sccm	20 sccm	300 mTorr	100 W