• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.483-488
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• 2006

Etching process of PMMA (Polymethyl Methacrylate) on glass surface was investigated by dry etching technique using remote plasma. To determine the etching characteristics, the remote plasma etching was conducted for various process parameters such as plasma power, reaction gas and distance from plasma generation. As the distance from the plasma generation was increased, the etch rate of PMMA was linearly decreased by radical density in plasma. PMMA has removed by reactive radicals in the plasma. The etch rate increased with plasma power because of more reactive radicals. The etch rate and surface roughness of PMMA increased with $O_2$ concentration in the etchant.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.700-706
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• 2016

Etch rate, surface roughness and microstructure as plasma resistance were evaluated for six kinds of oxide glass with different compositions. Borosilicate glass (BS) was found to be etched at the highest etch rate and zinc aluminum phosphate glass (ZAP) showed a relatively lower etch rate than borosilicate. On the other hand, the etching rate of calcium aluminosilicate glass (CAS) was measured to be similar to that of sintered alumina while yttrium aluminosilicate glass (YAS) showed the lowest etch rate. Such different etch rates by mixture plasma as a function of glass compositions was dependent on whether or not fluoride compounds were formed on glass and sublimated in high vacuum. Especially, in view that $CaF_2$ and $YF_3$ with high sublimation points were formed on the surface of CAS and YAS glasses, both CAS and YAS glasses were considered to be a good candidate for protective coating materials on the damaged polycrystalline ceramics parts in semi-conductor and display processes.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.1305-1308
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• 2003

A new technique is presented to construct a predictive model of plasma etch process. This was accomplished by combining a backpropagation neural network (BPNN) and a genetic algorithm (GA). The predictive model constructed in this way is referred to as a GA-BPNN. The GA played a role of controlling training factors simultaneously. The training factors to be optimized are the hidden neuron, training tolerance, initial weight magnitude, and two gradients of bipolar sigmoid and linear functions. Each etch response was optimized separately. The proposed scheme was evaluated with a set of experimental plasma etch data. The etch process was characterized by a $2^3$ full factorial experiment. The etch responses modeled are aluminum (A1) etch rate, silica profile angle, A1 selectivity, and dc bias. Additional test data were prepared to evaluate model appropriateness. The GA-BPNN was compared to a conventional BPNN. Compared to the BPNN, the GA-BPNN demonstrated an improvement of more than 20% for all etch responses. The improvement was significant in the case of A1 etch rate.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.213-213
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• 2010

Magnetic random access memory (MRAM), based on magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) and CMOS, is one of the best semiconductor memories because it can provide nonvolatility, fast access time, unlimited read/write endurance, low operating voltage and high storage density. For the realization of high density MRAM, the etching of MTJ stack with good properties is one of a key process. Recently, there has been great interest in the MTJ stack using MgO as barrier layer for its huge room temperature MR ratio. The use of MgO barrier layer will undoubtedly accelerate the development of MTJ stack for MRAM. In this study, high-density plasma reactive ion etching of MgO films was investigated in an inductively coupled plasma of $Cl_2$/Ar gas mixes. The etch rate, etch selectivity and etch profile of this magnetic film were examined on vary gas concentration. As the $Cl_2$ gas concentration increased, the etch rate of MgO monotonously decreased and etch slop was slanted. The effective of etch parameters including coil rf power, dc-bais voltage, and gas pressure on the etch profile of MgO thin film was explored, At high coil rf power, high dc-bais voltage, low gas pressure, the etching of MgO displayed better etch profiles. Finally, the clean and vertical etch sidewall of MgO films was achieved using $Cl_2$/Ar plasma at the optimized etch conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2005

A new model of plasma etch process was constructed by using a radial basis function network (RBFN). This technique was applied to an etching of silicon carbide films in a NF$_3$ inductively coupled plasma. Experimental data to train RBFN were systematically collected by means of a 2$^4$ full factorial experiment. Appropriateness of prediction models was tested with test data consisted of 16 experiments not pertaining to the training data. Prediction performance was optimized with variations in three training factors, the number of pattern units, width of radial basis function, and initial weight distribution between the pattern and output layers. The etch responses to model were an etch rate and a surface roughness measured by atomic force microscopy. Optimized models had the root mean-squared errors of 26.1 nm/min and 0.103 nm for the etch rate and surface roughness, respectively. Compared to statistical regression models, RBFN models demonstrated an improvement of more than 20 % and 50 % for the etch rate and surface roughness, respectively. It is therefore expected that RBFN can be effectively used to construct prediction models of plasma processes.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics A
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• v.30A no.7
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• pp.60-74
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• 1993

Experiments of RIE of tungsten films using SF$_{6}$ plasma were conducted to investigate the effect of process parameters on etch rate, uniformity, anisotropy, and selectivity. As power increased, the etch rate increased. Maximum etch rate was obtained at 200mtorr As interelectrode spacing increased the etch rate increased for P < 200mtorr while it decreased for P> 200mtorr. Etch rate was maximum at 20 sccm gas flow rate. As substrate temperature increased, the etch rate increased and activation energy was 0.046 eV. In addition, maximum etch rate was acquired at 20% $O_{2}$ addition. The etch rate slightly increased when Ar was added up to 20% while it continuously decreased when N$_{2}$ was added. Uniformity got improved as pressure decreased and was less than 4% for P <100mtorr. Mass spectrometer was utilized to analyze gas composition and S and F peaks were observed from XPS analysis with increasing power. The anisotropy was better for smaller power and spacing, and lower pressure and temperature. It improved when CH$_{4}$ was added and anisotropic etch profile was obtained when about 10% $O_{2}$ was added. The selectjvity was better for smaller power larger pressure and spacing, and lower temperature. Especially. low temperature processing was proposed as a novel method to improve the anisotropy and selectivity.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.392-400
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• 2015

Monitoring of plasma etch processes for fault detection is one of the hallmark procedures in semiconductor manufacturing. Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) has been considered as a gold standard for modeling plasma etching processes for on-line diagnosis and monitoring. However, statistical quantitative methods for processing the OES data are still lacking. There is an urgent need for a statistical quantitative method to deal with high-dimensional OES data for improving the quality of etched wafers. Therefore, we propose a robust relevance vector machine (RRVM) for regression with statistical quantitative features for modeling etch rate and uniformity in plasma etch processes by using OES data. For effectively dealing with the OES data complexity, we identify seven statistical features for extraction from raw OES data by reducing the data dimensionality. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach is more suitable for high-accuracy monitoring of plasma etch responses obtained from OES.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.755-759
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• 2013

The etch rate and etch profile of Si was investigated when Ar was added to an $SF_6$ plasma in the etch step of the Bosch process. A Si substrate was etched with the Bosch process using $SF_6$ and $SF_6$/Ar plasmas, respectively, in the etch step to analyze the effects of Ar addition on the etch characteristics of Si. When the Ar flow rate in the $SF_6$ plasma was increased, the etch rate of the Si substrate increased, had a maximum at 20% of the Ar flow rate, and then decreased. This was because the addition of Ar to the $SF_6$ plasma in the etch step of the Bosch process resulted in the bombardment of Ar ions on the Si substrate. This enhanced the chemical reactions (thus etch rates) between F radicals and Si as well as led to sputtering of Si particles. Consequently, the etch rate was higher more than 10% and the etch profile was more anisotropic when the Si substrate was etched with the Bosch process using a $SF_6$/Ar (20% of Ar flow rate) plasma during the etch step. This work revealed a feasibility to improve the etch rate and anisotropic etch profile of Si performed with the Bosch process.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2000.06b
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• pp.298-301
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• 2000

We investigated the etch rate of SiO$_2$ in E-ICP, ICP system and the addition gas (O$_2$H$_2$) effect on SiO$_2$ etch characteristics. In all conditions, E-ICP shows higher etch rate than ICP. Small amount of O$_2$ addition increase F atom and O$\^$*/ concentration. at optimized condition (30％ O$_2$ in CF$_4$, 70Hz) E-ICP system shows highest etch rate (about 6000${\AA}$). H$_2$addition in CF$_4$ Plasma make abrupt decrease Si etch rate and moderate decrease SiO$_2$ etch rate.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.166-169
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• 2010

In this study, we changed the etch parameters (gas mixing ratio, radio frequency [RF] power, direct current [DC]-bias voltage, and process pressure) and then monitored the effect on the $HfAlO_3$ thin film etch rate and the selectivity with $SiO_2$. A maximum etch rate of 108.7 nm/min was obtained in $Cl_2$ (3 sccm)/$BCl_3$ (4 sccm)/Ar (16 sccm) plasma. The etch selectivity of $HfAlO_3$ to $SiO_2$ reached 1.11. As the RF power and the DC-bias voltage increased, the etch rate of the $HfAlO_3$ thin film increased. As the process pressure increased, the etch rate of the $HfAlO_3$ thin films increased. The chemical state of the etched surfaces was investigated with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. According to the results, the etching of $HfAlO_3$ thin film follows the ion-assisted chemical etching.