Manufacturing Processes

(ME 361) Lecture-18

Instructor: Shantanu Bhattacharya
 Review of Previous Lecture
• Electrode materials and dielectric fluids for
EDM.
• Case hardening effect in roughing and finish
EDM operations.
• Theoretical fundamentals of E-Beam
Machining.
 Characteristics of EBM processes
•The drilled hole also possesses a short taper (2-4 deg.) when the sheet thickness is
more than 0.1mm.
•Some ideas about the performance characteristics of drilling holes with EBM can be
obtained from the table below.
 Characteristics of EBM
•While cutting a slot the machining speed normally depends on the rate of material
removal, i.e., the cross-section of the slot to be cut.
•The sides of a slot in a sheet with thickness up to 0.1mm are almost parallel.
•A taper of 1-2 deg. is observed in a slot cut in a thicker plate.
• A small amount of beam splatter occurs on the beam incident side.
•The table below gives some ideas about the slot cutting capabilities of the
electron beam.
 Power requirement in EBM
•The power requirement is found to be approximately proportional to the rate of
metal removal.
•So, P=CQ, C being the constant of proportionality. The table below gives the value
of C for different work materials.

Numerical Problem:
For cutting a 150 micron wide slot in a 1mm thick tungsten sheet, an electron
beam with 5 KW power is used. Determine the speed of cutting
 Mechanics of EBM process
•Electrons are the smallest
stable elementary particles
with a mass of 9.109X10-31 Kg
and a negative charge of
1.602X10-19 C.
•When an electron is
accelerated through a
potential difference of V volts,
the change is Kinetic energy
can be expressed as ½ (me
)(u2-u02 ) eV, where me is the
electron mass.
•u, is the final velocity, u0 is the initial velocity, and e is the electron charge.
•If we assume initial velocity of the emitting electron to be negligible, the final
expression for electron velocity u in km/sec. is given by:
U = 600 (V)1/2

• When a fast moving electron impinges on a material surface, it penetrates through

a layer undisturbed.
•Then it starts colliding with the molecules, and ultimately, is brought to rest.
 Mechanics of EBM
• The layer through which the electron penetrates undisturbed is called a
transparent layer.
•Only, when the electron begins colliding with the lattice atoms does it start giving
up its kinetic energy, and the heat is generated.
•So, it is clear that the generation of heat takes place inside the material, i.e.,
below the transparent skin.
•The total range to which the electron can penetrate (δ) depends on the kinetic
energy, i.e., on the accelerating voltage (V) It has been found that
 Variation of temperature with distance
from the surface for various pulse
durations.
As the pulse duration increases, the peak temperature
shifts towards the surface.
Derivation of Functional characteristics
of ECM
Derivation of Functional characteristics
of ECM
Derivation of Functional characteristics
of ECM
Derivation of Functional characteristics
of ECM
Derivation of Functional characteristics
of ECM
Derivation of Functional characteristics
of ECM
Derivation of Functional characteristics
of ECM
Derivation of Functional characteristics
of ECM
 Numerical Problem
For cutting a 150 micron wide slot in a 1mm thick tungsten sheet, an electron beam
machine with 5KW power is used. Determine the speed of cutting.
 Power requirement in EBM
•The power requirement is found to be approximately proportional to the rate of
metal removal.
•So, P=CQ, C being the constant of proportionality. The table below gives the value
of C for different work materials.

Numerical Problem:
For cutting a 150 micron wide slot in a 1mm thick tungsten sheet, an electron
beam with 5 KW power is used. Determine the speed of cutting
 Effects of E-beam on materials
•Since the machining by E-beam is achieved without
raising the temperature of the surrounding material,
there is no effect on work material.

•Because of the extremely high energy density, the work

material 25-50 microns away from the machining spot
remains at room temperature.

•Apart from this the chances of contamination of the

work material is also less as the process is carried in
high vacuum.
Chemical Machining
 Wafer specification and preparation
• The boule is first characterized for resistivity and crystal perfection.
• Then seed and tail are cut off and the boule is mechanically trimmed to
proper diameter.
• The diameter at this point is slightly larger than the final wafer diameter,
since additional etching will still be done.
• For wafers 150mm or less, flats are ground the entire length of the boule
to denote crystal orientation and doping type.
• The largest flat called the primary, is oriented perpendicular to the <100>
direction.
 Subtractive Techniques
Wet etching:
Wet etching is referred to as etching processes of solid materials in a chemical
solution.
Wet etching in microelectronics are mostly isotropic, independent of
crystalline orientation.
Because of the under-etching effect, isotropic etching has drawbacks in
designing lateral structures.
If the etch solution is well stirred , the isotropic etch front has a spherical
shape.
 Etch Selectivity
High etch selectivity is a necessary characteristic for Silicon Micromachining.
• Prevents erosion of photoresist and/or underlying films.
• Permits over-etching to compensate for process nonuniformities.

Low Etch Selectivity

• Substrate damage
• Improper etch stop layer

High Etch Selectivity

• Little Substrate damage
• Proper etch stop layer
Some Common Etchants (for Isotropic
Wet Etching in Silicon)
Material Etchants Selective To
Si HF, HNO3, SiO2
CH3COOH
Si KOH SiO2
SiO2 NH4, HF Si
SiO2 HF, NHO3, H2O Si
SiO2 H3PO4, NHO3, H2O Si
Si3N4 H3PO4 SiO2
Al H3PO4, HNO3, H2O SiO2
 Dry Etching
• Physical Dry Etching:
It utilizes beams of ions, electrons or photons to bombard the material
surface. The kinetic energy of the ions knocks out atoms from the
substrate surface.
The high beam energy then evaporates the knocked out materials.
Limitations:
Slow etch rates
Low selectivity because ions attack all materials.
Trench effects caused by reflected ions.

• Chemical Dry Etching:

Chemical dry etching uses a chemical reaction between etchant gases to
attack material surface.
Gaseous products are conditions for chemical dry etching because deposition
of reaction products will stop the etching process.
Chemical dry etching is isotropic. This technique is similar to wet etching and
exhibits relatively high selectivity.
 Recipes of Dry Etchant Gases

Physical Chemical Etching

•Some Dry etching is referred to as a physical-chemical

etching process.
•These are RIE (reactive ion etching), Anodic Plasma Etcing
(APE), Magnetically enhanced reactive ion etching (MERIE),
Triode reactive ion etching (TRIE), and transmission coupled
plasma etching (TCPE).
 Introduction to Micro-fabrication

Borrowed From Madou et. al. 2002.

 Photolithography
•Lithography is the most important technique for fabricating microstructure.

•Depending on the type of energy beam, lithography techniques can be further divided
into photolithography, electron beam lithography, X-ray lithography and ion lithography.

•The patterning process with photolithography is limited to 2-D structures. This technique
uses a photosensitive emulsion layer called resist, which transfers a desired pattern from
the transparent mask to the substrates.

•Photolithography consists of 3 steps:

1. Positioning process: Lateral positioning of the mask and the substrate, which is coated
with a resist, adjusting the distance between mask and substrate.

2. Exposure process: Optical or X-ray exposure of the resist layer, transferring patterns to
the resist layer by changing properties of exposed areas.

3. Development process: Dissolution or etching of the resist pattern in a developer

solution.
Photolithography
Photoresist Types for Optical lithography
(+ve and -ve tone)
Silicon wafer Silicon wafer

Spin coat Spin coat

adhesion adhesion
promoter promoter

Spin coated positive Spin coated –

photoresist layer ve photoresist
layer

Patterning Patterning
S1813 S1813

Develop away the Develop away the

unbonded portion unbonded portion