EE503: IC FABRICATION AND

PACKAGING TECHNOLOGY
ETCHING PROCESS
ENCIK MOHD HAFIZ BIN MOHD ROSLI

GROUP MEMBERS :
1.WONG CAR FIEV
2.MOHAMAD SOLEHIN BIN MOHD TIA

: 12DEP12F1003
: 12DEP12F1015

3.MUHAMMAD SYAHMI HAZIQ B. AHMAD ZAHID

: 12DEP12F1006

DEFINITION OF ETCHING
Etching is the process of using strong acid or etchant to cut into the
unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design.
Etching is used in microfabrication to chemically remove layers from the
surface of a wafer during manufacturing.
Etching is a critically important process module, and every wafer
undergoes many etching steps before it is complete.
For many etch steps, part of the wafer is protected from the etchant by a
"masking material which resists etching. the masking material is a
photoresist which has been patterned using photolithography

METHOD OF ETCHING
There are two main method of etching:
1. Wet etching
2. Dry Etching

WHERE ETCHING USED AND

PURPOSE OF ETCHING.
1. In wafer formation process, after slicing ingot
to removed any remaining damaged and
contaminated regions.
2. In photolithography process to removed
unnecessary photoresist.
3. In metallization process to removed
unnecessary metal surface for making
contact between devices.

WET ETCHING
1. Use of chemicals where a batch of wafers is dipped into a highly
concentrated pool of acid and the exposed areas of the wafer are etched
away.
2. Wet etching is good and fairly cheap and capable of processing many
wafers quickly.
3. The disadvantage is that wet etching does not allow the smaller critical
geometries that are needed for today chips.

DRY ETCHING
Dry etching refers to any of the methods of etching that
use gas instead of chemical etchants.
Dry etching is capable of producing critical geometries
that are very small.
Ex: Plasma Etching Reactive Ion Etching in 80s
Ex: Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) and
Inductively Coupled Plasmas (ICP) in 90s.

PLASMA ETCHING
Plasma etching uses a gas that is subjected to an intense
electric field to generate the plasma state.
The electric field is produced with coils that are wrapped
around the chamber and exposed to a high level RF source.
There are two different versions of this type of etching based
on the shape of the chamber used.
1. One consists of a barrel type chamber where the wafers are
placed sitting up while the gas is flowed over the wafers and
out through an exhaust pipe.
2. The second process uses a parallel plate reactor.

PARALLEL PLATE
REACTOR
There are two plates that are used to give the gas the electric field
rather than the coil that is wrapped around the barrel chamber.
In plasma form, the gases used are very reactive, providing effective
etching of the exposed surface.
Plasma etching provides good critical geometry but the wafer can be
damaged from the RF radiation.

ETCHANT and ETCHED LAYER

ETCH PROFILE : TYPES

The shape of the feature that is etched is called the etch profile.
1. Isotropic etch profile
Etched equally in all directions.
Wet etches gives isotropic profile.
Some dry etches gives isotropic profile.

2. Anisotropic etch profile

Etched in the preferred direction only
Only dry etches gives anisotropic profiles
Anisotropic profiles are needed to transfer lithographic patterns
for smaller features

WET AND DRY ETCHING

Wet etching ( chemical etching ) where the material is dissolved when

immersed in a chemical solution.
Dry etching ( plasma etching ) where the material is sputtered or dissolved using
reactive ions or a vapor phase etchant.

COMPARISON OF WET AND

DRY ETCHING
Wet Etch

Dry Etch

Etch Bias

Unacceptable for < 3m

Minimum

Etch Profile

Isotropic

Anisotropic to isotropic, controllable

Etch rate

High

Acceptable, controllable

Selectivity

High

Acceptable, controllable

Equipment cost

Low

High

Throughput

High (batch)

Acceptable, controllable

Chemical usage

High

Low