RESONANT INDUCTIVE PLASMA-ETCHING EVALUATION OF AN INDUSTRIAL PROTOTYPE

The development of the resonant inductive plasma etcher was undertaken in order to satisfy the ultra large scale integrated manufacturing requirements. We present in this article an evaluation of this equipment, based upon test processes as support for pointing out the specific advantages and limitations of the reactor. Plasma chemistries such as SF6 and HBr have been studied. Silicon trench etching and polysilicon gate etching results are reported. Studies have been made at both low-pressure range (1 mubar), and at higher pressure range (7 mubar), even though the equipment was not optimized for this operating pressure range. We present successful results for polysilicon gate etching at low pressure; whereas for trench etching, we show that a higher pressure is more suited to satisfying the requirements of such a process.