• 반도체디스플레이기술학회지
• /
• 제17권4호
• /
• pp.97-100
• /
• 2018

$NF_3$ Plasma etching of silicon was conducted by injecting only $NF_3$ gas into reactive ion etching. $NF_3$ Plasma etching was done in intermediate pressure. Silicon etching by $NF_3$ plasma in reactive ion etching was diagnosed through residual gas analyzer and optical emission spectroscopy. In plasma etching, optical emission spectroscopy is generally used to know what kinds of species in plasma. Also, residual gas analyzer is mainly to know the byproducts of etching process. Through experiments, the results of optical emission spectroscopy during silicon etching by $NF_3$ plasma was analyzed with connecting the results of etch rate of silicon and residual gas analyzer. It was confirmed that $NF_3$ plasma etching of silicon in reactive ion etching accords with the characteristic of reactive ion etching.

• 한국재료학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 한국재료학회 2010년도 춘계학술발표대회
• /
• pp.49.1-49.1
• /
• 2010

The particle generation during the plasma enhanced process is highly considered as serious problem in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. The material for the plasma processing chamber requires the plasma etching characteristics which are homogeneously etched surface and low plasma etching depth for preventing particulate contamination and high durability. We found that the materials without grain boundaries can prevent the particle generation. Therefore, the amorphous material with the low plasma etching rate may be the best candidate for the plasma processing chamber instead of the polycrystalline materials such as yttria and alumina. Three glasses based on $SiO_2$ and $Al_2O_3$ were prepared with various rare-earth elements (Gd, Y and La) which are same content in the glass. The glasses were plasma etched in the same condition and their plasma etching rate was compared including reference materials such as Si-wafer, quartz, yttria and alumina. The mechanical and thermal properties of the glasses were highly related with cationic field strength (CFS) of the rare-earth elements. We assumed that the plasma etching resistance may highly contributed by the thermal properties of the fluorine byproducts generated during the plasma exposure and it is expected that the Gd containing glass may have the highest plasma etching resistance due to the highest sublimation temperature of $GdF_3$ among three rare-earth elements (Gd, Y and La). However, it is found that the plasma etching results is highly related with the mechanical property of the glasses which indicates the cationic field strength. From the result, we conclude that the glass structure should be analyzed and the plasma etching test should be conducted with different condition in the future to understand the plasma etching behavior of the glasses perfectly.

• 대한전기학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 대한전기학회 1997년도 추계학술대회 논문집 학회본부
• /
• pp.279-281
• /
• 1997

The properties of Platinum dry etching were investigated in MICP(Magnetized Inductively Coupled Plasma). The problem with Platinum etching is the redeposition of sputtered Platinum on the sidewall. Because of the redeposits on the sidewall, the etching of patterned Platinum structure produce feature sizes that exceed the original dimension of the PR size and the etch profile has needle-like shape.[1] Generally, $Cl_2$ plasma is used for the fence-free etching.[1][2][3] The main object of this study was to investigate a new process technology for the fence-free Pt etching. Platinum was etched with Ar plasma at the cryogenic temperature and with Ar/$SF_6$ plasma at room temperature. In cryogenic etching, the height of fence was reduced to 20% at $-190^{\circ}C$ compared with that of room temp., but the etch profile was not fence-free. In Ar/$SF_6$ Plasma, chemical reaction took part in etching process. The trend of properties of Ar/$SF_6$ Plasma etching is similar to that of $Cl_2$ Plasma etching. Fence-free etching was possible, but PR selectivity was very low. A new gas chemistry for fence-free Platinum etching was proposed in this study.

• 한국재료학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 한국재료학회 2009년도 춘계학술발표대회
• /
• pp.38.1-38.1
• /
• 2009

Plasma etching is an essential process for electronic device industries and the particulate contamination during plasma etching has been interested as a big issue for the yield of productivity. The oxynitride glasses have a merit to prevent particulate contamination due to their amorphous structure and plasma etching resistance. The YSiAlON oxynitride glasses with increasing nitrogen content were manufactured. Each oxynitride glasses were fluorine-plasma etched and their plasma etching rate and surface roughness were compared with reference materials such as sapphire, alumina and quartz. The reinforcement mechanism of plasma etching resistance of the YSiAlON glasses studied by depth profiling at plasma etched surface using electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis. The plasma etching rate decreased with nitrogen content and there was no selective etching at the plasma etched surface of the oxynitride glasses. The concentration of silicon was very low due to the generation of SiF4 very volatile byproduct and the concentration of aluminum and yttrium was relatively constant. The elimination of silicon atoms during plasma etching was reduced with increasing nitrogen content because the content of the nitrogen was constant. And besides, the concentration of oxygen was very low on the plasma etched surface. From the study, the plasma etching resistance of the glasses may be improved by the generation of nitrogen related structural groups and those are proved by chemical composition analysis at plasma etched surface of the YSiAlON oxynitride glasses.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 한국진공학회 2011년도 제40회 동계학술대회 초록집
• /
• pp.32-32
• /
• 2011

Plasma etching is used in microelectronic processing for patterning of micro- and nano-scale devices. Commonly, optical emission spectroscopy (OES) is widely used for real-time endpoint detection for plasma etching. However, if the viewport for optical-emission monitoring becomes blurred by polymer film due to prolonged use of the etching system, optical-emission monitoring becomes impossible. In addition, when the exposed area ratio on the wafer is small, changes in the optical emission are so slight that it is almost impossible to detect the endpoint of etching. For this reason, as a simple method of detecting variations in plasma without contamination of the reaction chamber at low cost, a method of measuring plasma impedance is being examined. The object in this research is to investigate the suitability of using plasma impedance monitoring (PIM) with statistical approach for real-time endpoint detection of $SiO_2$ etching. The endpoint was determined by impedance signal variation from I-V monitor (VI probe). However, the signal variation at the endpoint is too weak to determine endpoint when $SiO_2$ film on Si wafer is etched by fluorocarbon plasma on inductive coupled plasma (ICP) etcher. Therefore, modified principal component analysis (mPCA) is applied to them for increasing sensitivity. For verifying this method, detected endpoint from impedance analysis is compared with optical emission spectroscopy (OES). From impedance data, we tried to analyze physical properties of plasma, and real-time endpoint detection can be achieved.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
• /
• 제2권4호
• /
• pp.189-193
• /
• 2003

The Ru etching using $O_2/C_{12}$ plasmas has been studied by employing the helicon etcher. The changes of Ru etch rate, Ru to $SiO_2$ etch selectivity and Ru electrode etching slope with varied process variables were investigated. The Ru etching slope at the optimized etching condition was measured to be $84^{\circ}$. We reveal that the Ru etching using $O_2/C_{12}$ plasma generates the $RuO_2$ thin film. Possible mechanism of Ru etching is discussed.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 제어로봇시스템학회 1996년도 한국자동제어학술회의논문집(국내학술편); 포항공과대학교, 포항; 24-26 Oct. 1996
• /
• pp.1360-1363
• /
• 1996

EPD(End Point Detection) is used to decide etching degree of layer which must be removed at wafer etching process in plasma etching process which is one of the most important process in semiconductor manufacturing. In this thesis, the method which detects malfunction of etching process in real-time will be discussed. Several EPD signal traces are collected in normal plasma etching condition and used as reference EPD signal traces. Critical points can be detected by applying differentiation and zero-crossing techniques to reference EPD signal. Mean and standard deviation of critical parameters which is memorized from reference EPD signal are calculated and these determine the lower and higher limit of control chart. And by applying statical control chart to EPD signals which are collected in real etching process malfunctions of process are detected in real-time. By means of applying this method to the real etching process we prove our method can accurately detect the malfunction of etching process and can compensate disadvantage of current industrial method.

• 한국재료학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 한국재료학회 2009년도 추계학술발표대회
• /
• pp.44.2-44.2
• /
• 2009

Polycrystalline materials suchas yttria and alumina have been applied as a plasma resisting material for the plasma processing chamber. However, polycrystal line material may easily generate particles and the particles are sources of contamination during the plasma enhanced process. Amorphous material can be suitable to prevent particle generation due to absence of grain-boundaries. We manufactured nitrogen-containing $SiO_2-Al_2O_3-Y_2O_3$ based glasses with various contents of silicon and fixed nitrogen content. The thermal properties, mechanical properties and plasma etching rate were evaluated and compared for the different composition samples. The plasma etching behavior was estimated using XPS with depth profiling. From the result, the plasma etching rate highly depends on the silicon content and it may results from very low volatile temperature of SiF4 generated during plasma etching. The silicon concentration at the plasma etched surface was very low besides the concentration of yttrium and aluminum was relatively high than that of silicon due to high volatile temperature of fluorine compounds which consisted with aluminum and yttrium. Therefore, we conclude that the samples having low silicon content should be considered to obtain low plasma etching rate for the plasma resisting material.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 한국진공학회 2013년도 제44회 동계 정기학술대회 초록집
• /
• pp.320-320
• /
• 2013

Film thickness monitoring with plasma impedance monitoring (PIM) is demonstrated for small area $SiO_2$ RF plasma etching processes in this work. The chamber conditions were monitored by the impedance signal variation from the I-V monitoring system. Moreover, modified principal component analysis (mPCA) was applied to estimate the $SiO_2$ film thickness. For verification, the PIM was compared with optical emission spectroscopy (OES) signals which are widely used in the semiconductor industry. The results indicated that film thickness can be estimated by 1st principal component (PC) and 2nd PC. Film thickness monitoring of small area $SiO_2$ etching was successfully demonstrated with RF plasma harmonic impedance monitoring and mPCA. We believe that this technique can be potentially applied to plasma etching processes as a sensitive process monitoring tool.

• 제어로봇시스템학회논문지
• /
• 제4권4호
• /
• pp.433-440
• /
• 1998

The purpose of this study is to provide an integrated process control system for plasma etching. The control system is designed to employ neural network for the modeling of plasma etching process and to utilize genetic algorithm to search for the appropriate selection of control input variables, and to provide a control chart to maintain the process output within a desired range in the real plasma etching process. The target equipment is the one operating in DRAM production lines. The result shows that the integrated system developed is practical value in the improved performance of plasma etching process.