Organofluorine Chemical Gases of Industrial Importance in Semiconductor Materials Processing

Abstract

Organofluorine chemical (OFC) gases are important products of the fluorochemicals industry and find major usage as essential materials that largely impact semiconductor materials processing in the creation of computer chip technologies. These OFC gases provide highly reactive sources of fluorine and fluorocarbon radical species and thus form the foundation upon which plasma‐based etching and chamber cleaning processes are built. An important aspect of OFC gases is their fluorine to carbon (F:C) ratio, a parameter that reflects their reactivity in plasma‐based processes of importance for integrated circuit (IC) fabrication technology. OFC gases used in the semiconductor materials‐processing area are prepared on an industrial scale through a variety of synthetic processes. These processes include direct and indirect addition of elemental fluorine (F 2 ), fluorine substitution, halogen exchange, hydrogen addition/dehydrofluorination, pyrolysis, and building‐block methodologies.