Parameter optimization for an ICP deep silicon etching system

Abstract

The paper aims at investigating the parameter optimization of silicon micro-and nano-sized etching by an inductive coupled plasma-reactive ion etching system. The source power and the SF 6 gas pressure are two main parameters that dominate etching. A pre-test is conducted to estimate the process window of the SF 6 gas pressure at some given source powers. The process window is a parameter range in which the etching result is acceptable but may not be the best. In order to achieve excellent etching quality, the Taguchi experimental method is applied to evaluate parameters and find their optimum conditions. With the source power and SF 6 gas pressure being set into the process window, four parameters, which are the substrate temperature, the bias power, the gas cycle time and the C 4 F 8 gas flow rate, are evaluated and optimized for micro-and nanosized etching. An impressive result, 200-nm-diameter pillar array with the pitch of 400 nm, is realized.

Fabrication of high aspect ratio X-ray grating using silicon dry etching method

“…The Bosch process [7][8][9] is usually used for silicon deep reactive ion etching (Deep-RIE) in an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching system. The Bosch process is an attempt to increase the aspect ratio of the silicon etching process in SF 6 plasma by protecting the trench sidewalls with a layer of a polymer deposited in between the two consecutive etching steps.…”

“…On the other hand, Silicon dry etching technology based on reactive ion etching using inductively coupled plasma is currently attracting the attention as a technology that will play a key role in miniaturization and three-dimensional micro-structures such as MEMS devices. Si dry etching technology makes it possible to fabricate high aspect ratio rectangular microstructures [7][8][9]. Then, we are able to fabricate high precision grating pattern.…”

Inductively Coupled Plasma etching of amorphous silicon nanostructures over nanotopography using C4F8/SF6 chemistry

“…The etching mechanisms of the C 4 F 8 /SF 6 plasma chemistry have been investigated for deep etching [7][8][9][10][11][12]. This section gives an investigation of the etch rates as a function of the SF 6 ratio, platen power and chamber pressure in a low power regime suitable for the patterning of shallow nanostructures.…”

Factorial experimental design applied to DRIE for optimised process in power electronics applications requiring high-aspect ratio trenches

“…Two applications in power electronics are considered in this paper: high-density integrated 3D capacitors (Brunet et al 2006;Benazzi et al 2007) used as output filters in future DC-DC microconverters and DT-SJMOSFET (Théolier et al 2007). For integrated 3D capacitors, the effective surface area of the electrodes is increased by etching deep cavities in silicon.…”

“…M. Brunet (&) Á P. Dubreuil Á A. Gouantes LAAS-CNRS, Université de Toulouse, 7 av. du Colonel Roche, 31077 Toulouse, France e-mail: mbrunet@laas.fr This paper presents an accurate optimisation of the DRIE process achieved through design of experiments (DoE) based on the 2 k factorial experimental design by Montgomery 1995, also described in (Box et al 2005) and (Goupy 2001). This approach is not usual for plasma processes as many unknown reactions can happen in the plasma.…”