The field of plasma etching is reviewed. Plasma etching, a revolutionary extension of the technique of physical sputtering, was introduced to integrated circuit manufacturing as early as the mid 1960s and more widely in the early 1970s, in an effort to reduce liquid waste disposal in manufacturing and achieve selectivities that were difficult to obtain with wet chemistry. Quickly, the ability to anisotropically etch silicon, aluminum, and silicon dioxide in plasmas became the breakthrough that allowed the features in integrated circuits to continue to shrink over the next 40 years. Some of this early history is reviewed, and a discussion of the evolution in plasma reactor design is included. Some basic principles related to plasma etching such as evaporation rates and Langmuir–Hinshelwood adsorption are introduced. Etching mechanisms of selected materials, silicon, silicon dioxide, and low dielectric-constant materials are discussed in detail. A detailed treatment is presented of applications in current silicon integrated circuit fabrication. Finally, some predictions are offered for future needs and advances in plasma etching for silicon and nonsilicon-based devices.

/pdf/plasma-etching-yesterday-today-and-tomorrow-4a8eftp390.pdf

Plasma etching: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow

Surface science aspects of etching reactions

We have used two‐photon laser‐induced fluorescence to obtain quantitative measurements of the concentration of ground state O atoms in O2+CF4 rf discharges. Absolute calibration was achieved by generating a known concentration of atomic oxygen by UV laser photolysis of O2. Trace amounts of Ar were added to serve as an inert reference gas for concurrent optical emission measurements, in which the plasma‐induced optical emission intensities from O* and Ar* lines were recorded. Emission line shapes were measured using a Fabry–Perot interfermoter to gain information on the mechanisms for formation of excited oxygen atoms in the plasma. Two excitation mechanisms were found to be important: (1) electron impact excitation of ground state atoms, e+O → O*+e, and (2) dissociative excitation of O2, e+O2 → O*+O+e. Evidence for both excitation mechanisms was obtained for O* (8446 A) emission, with atomic excitation being dominant, whereas dissociative excitation appeared to be the dominant mechanism for O* (7774 A) em...

Studies of atomic oxygen in O2+CF4 rf discharges by two‐photon laser‐induced fluorescence and optical emission spectroscopy

Ion bombardment energy and angle distributions have been measured in an argon plasma. The measured ion angle distribution at 10 mTorr shows that 30% of the ions have incident angles greater than 10° from the surface normal. However, ions with large incident angles have much lower energies than those incident perpendicular to the surface. At 500 mTorr a very large fraction of the ions have large incident angles, and the average energies of these ions are relatively independent of incident angle. Monte Carlo simulations of the sheath kinetics predict the trends shown in the experimental data for ion energy and angle distributions. Fine structure in the ion energy distribution was observed below 50 mTorr and is shown to be caused by charge‐exchange collisions in the sheath. The average ion energy in a symmetric parallel plate system is linearly related to the voltage applied across the electrodes for measured plasma pressures up to 500 mTorr.

Ion bombardment in rf plasmas

The energy and angular distribution of ions striking the electrodes in rf discharges are of interest with respect to the application of such discharges to the processing of semiconductor materials. The ability to fabricate small (< 1 μm) semiconductor features using the plasma etching process results, in part, from the energetic and anisotropic flux of ions which strike the semiconductor surface. In this paper the energy and angular distribution of ions striking the electrodes in low‐pressure capacitively coupled rf discharges are studied using a Monte Carlo model for ion trajectories and a parametric model for the time‐dependent electric field within the sheath. Energy and angular distributions are discussed as a function of rf frequency, ion mass, and the mean‐free path between charge exchange collisions within the sheath. The ion energy distribution is found to be characterized by a scaling parameter proportional to (rf frequency × sheath thickness)2 × ion mass/(sheath voltage); small values of this parameter yield bimodal distributions, intermediate values yield distributions peaked at the maximum sheath potential, and high values yield distributions peaked at the average sheath potential. The ion energy distribution is also examined for different values of the dc and rf components of the sheath potential and for different models for the electric field within the sheaths. When the dc component of the sheath potential is small compared to the rf amplitude, a large thermal component to the ion energy distribution results. The implication of this result and that for the angular distribution of ions incident on the electrodes is discussed with respect to the isotropy of the etch obtained during plasma etching of semiconductor materials.

Distribution of ion energies incident on electrodes in capacitively coupled rf discharges

Anisotropic etching of SiO2 films is reported in low frequency (∼100 kHz), moderate‐pressure (0.35 Torr) CF4/O2 and NF3/Ar plasmas. Rates up to 2000 A/min were achieved with high selectivity over GaAs and InP substrates. The etching mechanism was studied with optical spectroscopy and downstream chemical titrations. Anisotropy is attributed to ion‐enhanced reactivity of fluorine atoms with SiO2 at rates up to two hundred times larger than purely chemical etching by fluorine atoms. Damage and product sputter desorption models of this process were evaluated. These two models are nearly mathematically equivalent at steady state, and show that the effectiveness of ions in etching by enhanced reaction is roughly 15 times that in physical sputtering under these conditions.

D. J. Werder

Papers

Anisotropic etching of SiO2 in low‐frequency CF4/O2 and NF3/Ar plasmas