Lecture 7

MICROSYSTEMS ENGINEERING

Dr.-Ing. Ronny Gerbach

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 Contents of Last Lecture

■ Physical Vapor Deposition

■ Thermal vapor evaporation (principle, types, applications)
■ Sputtering (principle, types, applications)
■ Chemical Vapor Deposition
■ Principle of CVD
■ Types:
■ LPCVD
■ APCVD
■ PECVD
■ Others:
■ Galvanic processes
■ Spin-coating
■ Langmuir-Blodgett

Thin Film Technology -2-

 Course Outline

1) Introduction
2) Clean Rooms and Yield
3) Materials for Microsystem Engineering
4) Thin Film Technology
5) Lithography
6) MEMS Technologies
7) Introduction into Packaging Technologies
8) Alternative Approaches for Microsystem Engineering

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 Introduction Thin Film Technology

Generation of thin films

Modification of thin films

“Removal” of thin films

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 Doping of MSE Materials

■ Adding of small amounts of impurities into semiconductors 

significant change of material properties
■ Electrical properties  resistivity between 10−4 … 102 cm
■ Chemical properties  etch rates for wet-chemical etching
■ Types of doping:
■ p-doping  adding of acceptors = elements from III. main group
(e.g. boron)
■ n-doping  adding of donors = elements from V. main group
(e.g. phosphorus)
■ Applications: microelectronic elements (transistors, resistors, diodes), etch
stop layers

Diffusion Implantation

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 Diffusion

■ Diffusion of impurities into bulk material at high temperatures

■ Typical process temperatures: 1000-1100°C
■ Description of material diffusion using Fick’s first and second law
■ Doping procedure:
■ Providing of dopant material by transmitting of N2 through liquid
material (e.g. B2H6, BF or BBr3, PH3 or POCl2)
■ Generation of dopant oxide
■ Material reduction at wafer surface

Bypass
N2
O2
Quartz tube
Wafer

e.g. Resistance heater

B2H6

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 Ion Implantation

■ Bombardment of wafers with accelerated impurities

■ Low process temperatures  reduces diffusion of contaminants
■ Implantation  process in non-equilibrium state
■ Requires “healing” of crystal defects at approx. 1000°C

Source: http://blog.bodycote.com/

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 Introduction Thin Film Technology

Generation of thin films

Modification of thin films

“Removal” of thin films

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 Introduction into Thin Film Structuring

■ Fundamental process flow in microsystem engineering

■ Film deposition
■ Lithography structuring
■ Patterning / structuring of thin film
■ Subtractive methods: Removal of material by breaking the bonds of
atoms or atomic clusters by chemical etchants or kinetic energy
■ Types of patterning / etching processes
■ Wet-chemical etching (e.g. KOH, TMAH, HF,…)
■ Dry-chemical etching (e.g. RIE and DRIE)

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 Wet-chemical Etching Processes
■ Processing / etching using wet-chemical etchants
■ Advantages:
■ Technologically simple processes
■ Simple equipment implementation  batches for etching, cleaning, rinsing
needed + drying processes
■ No re-deposition of material or radiation damages (e.g. UV light)
■ Disadvantages:
■ Reduced resolution of features
■ Safety issues

Material Wet-chemical etchant Process conditions

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 Anisotropic Etching of Silicon

■ Important process for microsystem engineering for realization of

cavities and free-standing structures
■ Typical etchants:

KOH TMAH EDP

Etchant KOH (24%) / H2O at TMAH (8%) / H2O EDP + Pyrocatechol
85°C
𝑅{100} in µm/h 100 55 75

𝑅 100 /𝑅{111} 400 40 35

Etch mask Thermal SiO2, SiO2, SiO2,
PE-CVD SiO2, Si3N4 Si3N4,
Si3N4, Au/Cr Au, Cr, Ag, Cu
Comments IC compatible, IC compatible, Toxic,
Simple use, Simple use, Fast degeneration,
cost-effective, No metal ions O2 exclusion needed
Intensive H2
generation

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 Anisotropic Etching of Silicon – Etch Stop

■ Anisotropic etch stop: Formation of cavities in Si

■ Selective etch stop at buried isolators (e.g. SiO2)

■ Selective etch stop at high boron doped Si layers
■ Electrochemical etch stop

Etchant

Wafer Counter electrode

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 Etch Rates of Silicon for Different Orientations
■ Etch rates depend on crystal orientation and etchant

Concave corners Convex corners

Etch shape determined by bevels / planes Planes with highest local etch rate causes
with lowest etch rate  etching until (100) profile  Underetching of convex corners
plane is reached (exist only for a short time)

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 Resulting Structures during Anisotropic Etching

Rotation / tilting 
enlargement of
Ideal structure
orientation

Rounded structure Convex corner

 will be transferred to  will be underetched
rectangle to rectangle

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 Introduction into Dry-chemical Etching

■ Plasma process  to produce

chemical reactive species Primary transport process in plasma etching
(atoms, radicals, and ions)
from inert molecular gas
■ Six major steps:
1) Generation of reactive
species (e.g., free
radicals)
2) Diffusion to surface
3) Adsorption on surface
4) Chemical reaction
5) Desorption of by-
products
6) Diffusion into bulk gas

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 Dry-Chemical Etching – Reactive Ion Etching (RIE)
■ RIE = chemical etching is accompanied by ion bombardment
■ Properties:
■ High selectivity + high anisotropy (by combination of advantages of plasma and
physical etching)
■ Increased etch rate
■ Lower selectivity than pure chemical etching
■ Ion bombardment:
■ Break crystal bonds and make surface more reactive to etchants
■ Some etching chemistries cause polymer formation  desorption of polymers by
bombardment
■ Nearly no ion bombardment on sidewalls  etch protection

Pure chemical plasma etching Reactive ion etching

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 Dry-Chemical Etching – Reactive Ion Etching (RIE)
RIE Chemistry
■ Forming of protective film when
inorganic material or organic
polymers are in the plasma
■ Monomers for polymer formation
(e.g. CF or CF2) can be generated
from additive gas or etch gas itself
■ Monomer generation can also
happen when polymer resist is
etched
■ Ion bombardment remove the
protection film from the surface
but not from the sidewall
 No etch attack of the radicals
on the sidewall
 Anisotropic etching

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 Dry-Chemical Etching – Reactive Ion Etching (RIE)
RIE Chemistry
■ Ratio between polymerization and etching
depend on the F/C ratio
Fluorine-to-carbon ratio model for silicon
■ Adding O2  increases F concentration by
combining with C (CO, CO2) which would
otherwise bond to F (CF3)  reduces
polymer formation
■ Adding O2 increases removal of
photoresist
■ Adding H2  reduces F concentration by
combination to form HF  increases
polymer formation
■ Controlled polymer deposition allow
anisotropic etching of otherwise purely
chemical isotropic etching
■ Polymerization leads to equipment
contamination/affecting reproducibility of
the etch process

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 Dry-Chemical Etching – Reactive Ion Etching (RIE)

Examples for
etching chemistries

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 Dry-Chemical Etching – Rective Ion Etching (RIE)

Basic systems for RIE

Parallel plate ECR-system ICP-system

system ■ ECR= Electron Cyclotron ■ ICP= Inductively coupled
Resonance plasma

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 Dry-Chemical Etching – Reactive Ion Etching (RIE)

Process parameters:
■ Chamber Pressure
■ Affects the mean free path of the ions
■ Higher pressure leads to more collisions and therefore the directionality of the
etching is compromised
■ Lower chamber pressure improves the anisotropy of the etching

■ Flow Rate of Reactive Gases

■ Higher flow rate of reactive gases  more reactive species (but requires higher
RF-power for generation of reactive species)

■ Substrate Temperature
■ High temperature enhances the chemical process
■ Higher temperature helps to remove the volatile products from the etched
surface
■ Higher temperature decreases selectivity to the photoresist

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 Dry-Chemical Etching – Deep RIE / DRIE
■ Alternating sequence of etching and
passivation
■ High etch depth and etch rates
■ Passivation step:
■ Conformal deposition of PTFE like
fluorocarbon (thickness: few monolayers)
■ Etching step:
■ Ion bombardment to remove polymer
■ Increased ion energy in vertical direction 
higher etch rate at bottom
■ Exposed Si surface  isotropic etching

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 Dry-Chemical Etching – Deep RIE / DRIE

Effects during etching:

■ Trench widening:
■ Erosion of mask edges lead to trench widening
■ Effect is supported due to slanted mask after hard bake

resist after hard bake

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 Dry-Chemical Etching – Deep RIE / DRIE

Effects during etching:

■ Increase of etch rate due to enhanced ion flux
■ Ion deflection from slanted mask or sidewall  trenching
■ Ion defection through negative charging of the sidewall  ballooning (bowing)
■ Ion shadowing  shadowing effect

trenching ballooning shadowing effect

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 Dry-Chemical Etching – Deep RIE / DRIE

Effects during etching:

■ Notching (Footing):
■ Charging of a dielectric on the
bottom surface by the ion
bombardment
■ Charging leads to direction
change of the ions
■ Etching reaction through the
impinging ions on the sidewall
above the bottom

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 Dry-Chemical Etching – Deep RIE / DRIE
Effects during etching:
■ “Loading”
■ Etch rate depend on surface area of the material to be etched
■ Consumption of etching species by the reaction with etched material
■ Macro loading:
■ Decrease of the etch rate with increased amount of etched area
■ Micro loading:
■ Etch rate depends on local pattern density
■ Structures of the same size etch slowly in dense patterns than wide open
areas
■ Counter measure: adding dummy structures to improve etch homogeneity

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 Dry-Chemical Etching – Deep RIE / DRIE

Effects during etching:

■ RIE lag:
■ Smaller trenches etch at a
slower rate than larger trenches
■ Reduced diffusion of etchants
through the smaller opening
■ Reduced removal / diffusion of
etch by-products

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