Etching

Etching
Etch – The process of removing material from a specified area

➢ Wet etching
➢ Dry etching
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Etch vs. Lift-off

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Wet Etching – Basic Mechanism
❖ Immersion etching or spray
etching
❖ Chemical transport by diffusion
or agitation
❖ Temperature

3 steps
1. Diffusion of reactive species
from liquid to the wafer surface
2. Reaction of species at surface
to form soluble species
3. Diffusion of reaction products
away from surface into liquid

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Typical Wet Etching Setup

❖ Typical etching
temperature – 60-140degC
❖ Etching under N2
atmosphere improves the
stability of etching solutions
❖ Typically the etchant is
agitated or recirculated by a
pumping system to improve
etching homogeneity

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Etching Fundamentals

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Isotropic Etching
❖ Identical etch rate along all crystal directions
❖ Aggressive acidic etchants
❖ Most common: HNA (mixture of hydrofluoric (HF), nitric
(HNO3) and acetic acid (CH3COOH))
❖ Silicon etch – Oxidation of silicon to SiO2 and removal of
SiO2 with HF
Use –
• Removal of work damaged surfaces
• Rounding of corners
• Removal of roughness
• Creating structures or planar surfaces in single crystal slices
(thinning)
• Patterning of films
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Isotropic Etching Results

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Anisotropic Wet Etching
❖ Special etching solutions
(KOH, EDP or TMAH) etch
single crystalline silicon with
different etch rates along
different crystal directions
❖ Orientation selective etch of
silicon occurs owing to different
atomic packing density of some
orientations relative to others
❖ High etch rates in <100>
❖ Low etch rate in <111>
direction

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Si Wet Etching
(100) Wafer – Mask aligned in <110> direction

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Si Wet Etching
(100) Wafer – Mask aligned in <100> direction

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Common Anisotropic Wet Etching Solutions

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Temperature dependence

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Comparison of silicon etchants

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Comparison of silicon etchants

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Wet etchants for some common materials

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Silicon dioxide Etching

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Dry Etching
❖ Gaseous etching medium (etchant)
❖ Chemical reaction or physical impact etching between gaseous
etchants and surface material of wafer
❖ In most cases, the etching gas partially ionized and therefore
dry etching is synonymous with plasma assisted etching
❖ Anisotropic or isotropic etching results, depending on the
etching tool and process parameters

Use -
CMOS Technology – Use for critical etching steps requiring higher
resolution
MEMS – Used to create high aspect ratio structures

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Dry Etching

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Dry Etching Mechanisms

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Chemical Etching
❖ Use of corrosive gases and plasma energy to cause chemical
reactions at surface
❖ Glow discharge is used to produce chemically reactive species
(atoms, radicals or ions)
❖ Chemical reaction between etchant gas and surface layer of
the wafer

Advantage –
High selectivity rate

Disadvantage –
Isotropic etch

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Physical Etching
❖ Also referred as ion beam etching, sputtering or ion milling
❖ Ions of chemically innert gas is bomabarded to the wafer
surface causing molecules to sputter of surface
❖ Argon introduced into RF chamber for producing ions

Advantages –
• Low level undercutting
• Anisotropic etch

Disadvantages –
• Low selectivity rate
• High power requirement

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Chemical and Physical Etching

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Ion Energy vs. Pressure for plasma

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Reactive Ion Etching (RIE)
❖ Combines physical and chemical etching techniques
❖ Neutral gas in RF sputtering system replaced by chemically active species
❖ Glow discharge is used to produce chemically reactive species (atoms,
radicals or ions) and chemically innert ions
❖ Ions applied to achieve etch directionality: directed energy input by ion
bombardment
❖ Material removed by chemical means and ion bombardment of substrate
surface
❖ Widely used in VLSI fabrication
Advantages –
• High selectivity rate
• Anisotropic
Disadvantages –
• Plasma etching extremely sensitive to many variables, rendering etch results
sometimes inconsistent and irreproducable
• Surface damage
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Reactive Ion Etching Plasma Chemistry

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Reactive Ion Etching Plasma Chemistry

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Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE)

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DRIE or Bosch process

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High AR trenches using DRIE

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Terminologies used for etching

❖ Etch rate
❖ Selectivity
❖ Anisotopy
❖ Uniformity
❖ Etch profile
❖ Loading effect
❖ Under/over etch
❖ µ-trench

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