Chapter 10 Etching 569da92153292

Chapter 10
ETCHING
Virginia Tech C10 - 1

CONTENTS
 Introduction
 Basic Concepts
– Wet etching
– Plasma etching
 Manufacturing Methods
– Plasma etching conditions and issues
– Plasma etch methods for various films
 Measurements Methods
 Models and Simulations
 Limits and Future Trends

Introduction
 After a thin film is deposited, it is usually etched to

remove unwanted materials and leave only the desired
pattern on the wafer
 The process is done many times(review flow chart of
Chapter 2)
 An overview of the process is shown in Figure 10-1
 In addition to deposited films, sometimes we also need
to etch the Si wafer to create trenches (especially in
MEMS)
 The masking layer may be photoresist, SiO2 or Si3N4
 The etch is usually done until another layer of a
different material is reached

Introduction

Introduction
 Etching can be done “wet” or “dry”

 Wet etching
– uses liquid etchants
– Wafer is immersed in the liquid
– Process is mostly chemical
 Wet etching is not used much in VLSI wafer
fab any more

Introduction
 Dry etching
– Uses gas phase etchants in a plasma
– The process is a combination of chemical
and physical action
– Process is often called “plasma etching”
 This is the normal process used in most VLSI
fab
 The ideal etch produces vertical sidewalls as
shown in 10-1
 In reality, the etch occurs both vertically and
laterally (Figure 10-2)

Introduction

Introduction
 Note that
– There is undercutting, non-vertical
sidewalls, and some etching of the Si
 The photoresist may have rounded tops and
non-vertical sidewalls
 The etch rate of the photoresist is not zero and
the mask is etched to some extent
 This leads to more undercutting

Introduction
 Etch selectivity is the ratio of the etch rates of

different materials in the process
 If the etch rate of the mask and of the
underlying substrate is near zero, and the etch
rate of the film is high, we get high selectivity
 This is the normally desired situation
 If the etch rate of the mask or the substrate is
high, the selectivity is poor
 Selectivities of 25 – 50 are reasonable
 Materials usually have differing etch rates due
to chemical processes rather than physical
processes

Introduction
 Etch directionality is a measure of the etch

rate in different directions (usually vertical
versus lateral)

Introduction
 In isotropic etching, the etch rates are the

same in all directions
 Perfectly anisotropic etching occurs in only one
direction
 Etch directionality is often related to physical
processes, such as ion bombardment and
sputtering
 In general, the more physical a process is, the
more anisotropic the etch is and the less
selective it is
 Directionality is often desired in order to
maintain the lithographically defined features

Introduction
 Note, however, that very anisotropic

structures can lead to step coverage problems
in subsequent steps
 Selectivity is very desirable
– The etch rate of the material to be removed
should be fast compared to that of the mask
and of the substrate layer
 It is hard to get good directionality and good
selectivity at the same time

Introduction
 Other system requirements include

– Ease of transporting gases/liquids to the
wafer surface
– Ease of transporting reaction products away
from wafer surface
– Process must be reproducible, uniform,
safe, clean, cost effective, and have low
particulate production

Basic Concepts
 We consider two processes

– “wet” etching
– “dry” etching
 In the early days, wet etching was used
exclusively
 It is well-established, simple, and inexpensive
 The need for smaller feature sizes could only
be met with plasma etching
 Plasma etching is used almost exclusively
today

Basic Concepts
 The first wet etchants were simple chemicals

 By immersing the wafer in these chemicals,
exposed areas could be etched and washed
away
 Wet etches were developed for all step
 For SiO2, HF was used.
 Wet etches work through chemical processes
SiOa2 water
to produce 6HF  H 2SiF6byproduct
soluble  2H 2 O

Basic Concepts
 In some cases, the etch works by first

oxidizing the surface and then dissolving the
oxide
 An etch for Si involves a mixture of nitric acid
and HF
 The nitric acid (HNO3) decomposes to form
nitrogen dioxide (NO2)
Si  2NO2  2H 2 O  SiO 2  H 2  2HNO2
 The SiO2 is removed by the previous reaction

 The overall reaction is
Si  HNO3  6HF  H 2SiF6  HNO 2  H 2 O  H 2
Basic Concepts
 Buffers are often added to keep the etchants

at maximum strength over use and time

Ammonium fluoride (NH4F) is often used with
HF to help prevent depletion of the F ions
 This is called Basic Oxide Etch (BOE) or
Buffered HF (BHF)
 The ammonium fluoride reduces the etch rate
of photoresist and helps eliminate the lifting of
the resist during oxide etching

Acetic acid (CH3COOH) is often added to the
nitric acid/HF Si etch to limit the dissociation
of the nitric acid

Basic Concepts
 Wet etches can be very selective because they

depend on chemistry
 The selectivity is given by
r1
S
r2
 Material “1” is the film being etched and
material”2” is either the mask or the material
below the film being etched
 If S>>1, we say the etch has good selectivity
for material 1 over material 2

Basic Concepts
 Most wet etches etch isotropically

 The exception is an etch that depends on the
crystallographic orientation
 Example—some etches etch <111> Si slower
than <100> Si
 Etch bias is the amount of undercutting of the
mask
 If we assume that the selectivity for the oxide
over both the mask and the substrate is
infinite, we can define the etch depth as “d”
and the bias as “b”

Basic Concepts

Basic Concepts
 We often deliberately build in some

overetching into the process
 This is to account for the fact that
– the films are not perfectly uniform
– the etch is not perfectly uniform
 The overetch time is usually calculated from
the known uncertainties in film thickness and
etch rates
 It is important to be sure that no area is
under-etched; we can tolerate some over-
etching

Basic Concepts
 This means that it is important to have as high

a selectivity as possible to eliminate etching of
the substrate
 However, if the selectivity is too high, over-
etching may produce unwanted undercutting
 If the etch rate of the mask is not zero, what
happens?
 If m is the amount of mask removed, we get
unexpected lateral etching

Basic Concepts

Basic Concepts
 m is called “mask erosion”

 For anisotropic etching, mask erosion should
not cause much of a problem if the mask is
perfectly vertical
 Etching is usually neither perfectly anisotropic
nor perfectly isotropic
 We can define the degree of anisotropy by
rlat
Af  1 
rvert

Basic Concepts
 Isotropic etching has an Af = 0 while

anisotropic etching has Af = 1
 There are several excellent examples in the
text that do simple calculations of these
effects
 These examples should be studied carefully

Example
 Consider the structure below
 The oxide layer is 0.5 m. Equal structure widths and

spacings, Sf, are desired. The etch anisotropy is 0.8.
 If the distance between the mask edges, x, is 0.35 m,
what structure spacings and widths are obtained?

Example
 To obtain equal widths and spacings, Sf, the mask

width, Sm, must be larger to take into account the
anisotropic etching
 Since
Sm  S f  b
where b is the bias on each side, and
 Since
b
Af  1 
d
 Thus
S m  S f  2 x f 1  A f 
Example
 This result makes sense

– For isotropic etching, Af=0 and Sm is a maximum
– For perfectly anisotropic etching, Af=1 and Sm=Sf
and is a minimum
 The distance between the mask edges (x) is the
minimum feature size that can be resolved
 But
x  2S F  S m
 Substitution and rearranging yields (note typo in text)

x  S f  2 x f 1  A f 
S f  x  2 x f 1  A f 
Example
 Substituting numbers for the problem
S f  0.35 m  20.5 m 1  0.8

 0.55 m
 This result shows that the structure size can approach
the minimum lithographic dimension only when the film
thickness gets very small OR as the anisotropy gets
near 1.0
 Very thin films are not always practical
 This means we need almost vertical etching
 Wet etching cannot achieve the desired results

Plasma Etching
 Plasma etching has (for the most part)

replaced wet etching
 There are two reasons:
– Very reactive ion species are created in the
plasma that give rise to very active etching
– Plasma etching can be very anisotropic
(because the electric field directs the ions)
 An early application of plasma etching (1970s)
was to etch Si3N4 (it etches very slowly in HF
and HF is not very selective between the
nitride and oxide)

Plasma Etching
 Plasma systems can be designed so that either

reactive chemical components dominate or
ionic components dominate
 Often, systems that mix the two are used
– The etch rate of the mixed system may be
much faster than the sum of the individual
etch rates
 A basic plasma system is shown in the next
slide

Plasma Etching

Plasma Etching
 Features of this system

– Low gas pressure (1mtorr – 1 torr)
– High electric field ionizes some of the gas
(produces positive ions and free electrons)
– Energy is supplied by 13.56 MHz RF
generator
– A bias develops between the plasma and
the electrodes because the electrons are
much more mobile than the ions (the
plasma is biased positive with respect to the
electrodes)

Plasma Etching

Plasma Etching
 If the area of the electrodes is the same

(symmetric system) we get the solid curve of
10-8
 The sheaths are the regions near each
electrode where the voltage drops occur (the
dark regions of the plasma)
 The sheaths form to slow down the electron
loss so that it equals the ion loss per RF cycle
 In this case, the average RF current is zero

Plasma Etching
 The heavy ions respond to the average voltage

 The light electrons respond to the
instantaneous voltage
 The electrons cross the sheath only during a
short period in the cycle when the sheath
thickness is minimum
 During most of the cycle, most of the electrons
are turned back at the sheath edge
 The sheaths are thus deficient in electrons
 They are thus dark because of a lack of light-
emitting electron-ion collisions

Plasma Etching
 For etching photoresist, we use O2

 For other materials we use species containing halides
such as Cl2, CF4, and HBr
 Sometimes H2, O2, and Ar may be added
 The high-energy electrons cause a variety of reactions
 The plasma contains
– free electrons
– ionized molecules
– neutral molecules
– ionized fragments
– Free radicals

Plasma Etching

Plasma Etching
 In CF4 plasmas, there are

– Free electrons
– CF4
– CF3
– CF3+
–F
 CF and F are free radicals and are very
reactive
 Typically, there will be 1015 /cc neutral species
and 108-1012 /cc ions and electrons

Plasma Etching Mechanisms
 The main species involved in etching are

– Reactive neutral chemical species
– Ions
 The reactive neutral species (free radicals in
many cases) are primarily responsible for the
chemical component
 The ions are responsible for the physical
component
 The two can work independently or
synergistically

Plasma Etching Mechanisms
 When the reactive neutral species act alone,

we have chemical etching
 Ions acting by themselves give physical
etching
 When they work together, we have ion-
enhanced etching

Chemical Etching
 Chemical etching is done by free radicals

 Free radicals are neutral molecules that have
incomplete bonding (unpaired electrons)
 For example
e   CF4  CF3  F  e 
 Both F and CF3 are free radicals

 Both are highly reactive
 F wants 8 electrons rather than 7 and reacts
quickly to find a shared electron

Chemical Etching
 The idea is to get the free radical to react with

the material to be etched (Si, SiO2)
 The byproduct should be gaseous so that it
can be transported away (next slide)
 The reaction below is such a reaction
4F  Si  SiF4
 Thus, we can etch Si with CF4
 There are often several more complex
intermediate states

Chemical Etching

Chemical Etching
 Gas additives can be used to increase the

production of the reactive species (O2 in CF4)
 The chemical component of plasma etching
occurs isotropically
 This is because
– The arrival angles of the species is isotropic
– There is a low sticking coefficient (which is
more important)
 The arrival angle follows what we did in
deposition and there is a cosn dependence
where n=1 is isotropic

Chemical Etching
 The sticking coefficient is
Freacted
Sc 
Fincident
 A high sticking coefficient means that the
reaction takes place the first time the ion
strikes the surface
 For lower sticking coefficients, the ion can
leave the surface (usually at random angles)
and strikes the surface somewhere else

Chemical Etching
 One would guess that the sticking coefficient

for reactive ions is high
 However, there are often complex reactions
chained together. This complexity often means
low sticking coefficients
 Sc for O2/CF4 on Si is about 0.01
 This additional “bouncing around” of the ions
leads to isotropic etching

Chemical Etching

Chemical Etching
 Since free radicals etch by chemically reacting

with the material to be etched, the process
can be highly selective

Physical Etching
 Due to the voltage drop between the plasma

and the electrodes and the resulting electric
field across the sheaths, positive ions are
accelerated towards each electrode
 The wafers are on one electrode
 Therefore, ionic species (Cl+ or Ar+) will be
accelerated towards the wafer surface
 These ions striking the surface result in the
physical process
 The process is much more directional because
the ions follow the field lines

Physical Etching

Physical Etching
 This means n is very large in the cosn

distribution
 But, because the process is more physical than
chemical, the selectivity will not be as good as
in the more chemical processes
 We also assume that the ion only strikes the
surface once (which implies that the sticking
coefficient is near 1)
 Ions can also etch by physical sputtering
(Chapter 9)

Ion-Enhanced Etching
 The ions and the reactive neutral species do

not always act independently (the observed
etch rate is not the sum of the two
independent etch rates)
 The classic example is etching of Si with XeF2
and Ar+ ions are introduced


 The shape of the etch profiles are interesting

 The profiles are not the linear sum of the
profiles from the two processes
 The profile is much more like the physical etch
alone (c)

 If the chemical component is increased, the

vertical etching is increased, but not the
lateral etching
 The etch rate is also increased
 The mechanisms for these effects are poorly
understood
 Whatever the mechanism, the enhancement
only occurs where the ions hit the surface
 Since the ions strike normal to the surface, the
enhancement is in this direction
 This increases the directionality


 Possible models include

– Enhancement of the etch reaction
– Inhibitor removal
 The reaction takes place only where the ions
strike the surface
 Since the ions strike normal to the surface,
removal is thus only at the bottom of the well
 It is assumed that etching by radicals
(chemical etching) is negligible
 Note that even under these assumptions, the
side walls may not be perfectly vertical

 Note that an inhibitor can be removed on the

bottom, but not on the sidewalls
 If inhibitors are deliberately deposited, we can
make very anisotropic etches
 If the inhibitor formation rate is large
compared to the etch rate, one can get non-
vertical walls (next slide)


Types of Plasma Systems
 Several different types of plasma systems and

modes of operation have been developed
– Barrel etchers
– Parallel plate systems (plasma mode)
– Parallel plate systems (reactive ion mode)
– High density plasma systems
– Sputter etching and ion milling

Barrel Etchers
 Barrel etchers were one of the earliest types of systems

 VT has a small one
 Here, the electrodes are curved and wrap around the
quartz tube
 The system is evacuated and then back-filled with the
etch gas
 The plasma is kept away from the wafers by a
perforated metal shield
 Reactant species (F) diffuse through the shield to the
wafers
 Because the ions and plasma are kept away from the
wafers, and the wafers do not sit on either electrode,
there is NO ion bombardment and the etching is purely
chemical

Barrel Etchers

Barrel Etchers
 Because the etches are purely chemical, they

can be very selective (but is almost isotropic)
 The etching uniformity is not very good
 The systems are very simple and throughput
can be high
 They are used only for non-critical steps due
to the non-uniformity
 They are great for photoresist stripping

Parallel Plate Systems
 Parallel plate systems are commonly used for

etching thin films

 This system is very similar to a PECVD system

(Chapter 9) except that we use etch gases
instead of deposition gases
 These systems are much more uniform across
the wafer than the barrel etcher
 The wafers are bombarded with ions due to
the voltage drop (Figure 10-8)
 If the plates are symmetric (same size) the
physical component of the etch is found to be
rather small and one gets primarily chemical
etching

 By increasing the energy of the ions

(increasing the voltage) the physical
component can be increased
 This can be done by decreasing the size of the
electrode on which the wafers sit and changing
which electrode is grounded
 In this configuration, we get the reactive ion
etching (RIE) mode of operation
 Here, we get both chemical and physical
etching
 By lowering the gas pressure, the system can
become even more directional

High-Density Plasma Etching
 This system is becoming more popular

 These systems separate the plasma density
and the ion energy by using a second
excitation source to control the bias voltage of
the wafer electrode
 A different type of source for the plasma is
used instead of the usual capacitively coupled
RF source
 It is non-capacitively coupled and generates a
very high plasma density without generating a
large sheath bias


 These systems still generate high ion fluxes

and etch rates even though they operate at
much lower pressures (1—10 mtorr) because
of the higher plasma density
 Etching in these systems is like RIE etching
with a very large physical component
combined with a chemical component
involving reactive neutrals
 They thus give reasonable selectivity

Summary

Summary

Chapter 10 Etching 569da92153292

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chapter 10 Etching 569da92153292

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chapter 10

Virginia Tech C10 - 1

Virginia Tech C10 - 2

 After a thin film is deposited, it is usually etched to

Virginia Tech C10 - 3

Virginia Tech C10 - 4

 Etching can be done “wet” or “dry”

Virginia Tech C10 - 5

Virginia Tech C10 - 6

Virginia Tech C10 - 7

Virginia Tech C10 - 8

 Etch selectivity is the ratio of the etch rates of

Virginia Tech C10 - 9

 Etch directionality is a measure of the etch

Virginia Tech C10 - 10

 In isotropic etching, the etch rates are the

Virginia Tech C10 - 11

 Note, however, that very anisotropic

Virginia Tech C10 - 12

 Other system requirements include

Virginia Tech C10 - 13

 We consider two processes

Virginia Tech C10 - 14

 The first wet etchants were simple chemicals

Virginia Tech C10 - 15

 In some cases, the etch works by first

 The SiO2 is removed by the previous reaction

 Buffers are often added to keep the etchants

Virginia Tech C10 - 17

 Wet etches can be very selective because they

Virginia Tech C10 - 18

 Most wet etches etch isotropically

Virginia Tech C10 - 19

Virginia Tech C10 - 20

 We often deliberately build in some

Virginia Tech C10 - 21

 This means that it is important to have as high

Virginia Tech C10 - 22

Virginia Tech C10 - 23

 m is called “mask erosion”

Virginia Tech C10 - 24

 Isotropic etching has an Af = 0 while

Virginia Tech C10 - 25

 Consider the structure below

 The oxide layer is 0.5 m. Equal structure widths and

Virginia Tech C10 - 26

 To obtain equal widths and spacings, Sf, the mask

 This result makes sense

 Substitution and rearranging yields (note typo in text)

 Substituting numbers for the problem

S f  0.35 m  20.5 m 1  0.8

Virginia Tech C10 - 29

 Plasma etching has (for the most part)

Virginia Tech C10 - 30

 Plasma systems can be designed so that either

Virginia Tech C10 - 31

Virginia Tech C10 - 32

 Features of this system

Virginia Tech C10 - 33

Virginia Tech C10 - 34

 If the area of the electrodes is the same

Virginia Tech C10 - 35

 The heavy ions respond to the average voltage