The characteristics of the dry etching of SiN :H thin films for display devices using SF 6 /O 2 and NF 3 /O 2 were investigated using a dual-frequency capacitively coupled plasma reactive ion etching (CCP-RIE) system. The investigation was carried out by varying the RF power ratio (13.56 MHz/2 MHz), pressure, and gas flow ratio. For the SiN :H film, the etch rates obtained using NF 3 /O 2 were higher than those obtained using SF 6 /O 2 under various process conditions. The relationships between the etch rates and the usual monitoring parameters-the optical emission spectroscopy (OES) intensity of atomic fluorine (685.1 nm and 702.89 nm) and the voltages and -were investigated. The OES intensity data indicated a correlation between the bulk plasma density and the atomic fluorine density. The etch rate was proportional to the product of the OES intensity of atomic fluorine ( (F)) and the square root of the voltages (√ ℎ + ) on the assumption that the velocity of the reactive fluorine was proportional to the square root of the voltages.

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Spatial distributions of plasma parameters such as electron density, electron temperature and electric potential were investigated using a commercial simulation software (COMSOL TM) to predict the effects of antenna configuration in a large area inductively coupled plasma (ICP) system for flat panel displays. Nine planar antenna sets were evenly placed above a ceramic window. While the electron density was influenced by both the input current and gas pressure, the electron temperature and electric potential were dominantly affected by the gas pressure.

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As research and development of high-performance devices are becoming increasingly important in the flat panel display industry, new structures and processes are essential to improve the performance of the TFT backplane. Also, high-density plasma systems are needed for new device fabrications. Chlorine-based, inductively-coupled plasma systems are widely used for highly-selective, anisotropic etching of polysilicon layers. In this paper, a plasma simulation for a large-area ICP system (8th glass size and 9 planar antenna set) was conducted using Ar/Cl2 gas. Transport models and Maxwell Equations were applied to calculate the plasma parameters such as electron density, electron temperature and electric potential. In addition, the spatial distribution of ions such as Ar+, Cl2+, Cl-, Cl+ were investigated respectively.