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The first etching processes used liquid-phase ("wet") etchants. This process is now largely outdated but was used up until the late 1980s when it was superseded by dry plasma etching. [1]: 147 The wafer can be immersed in a bath of etchant, which must be agitated to achieve good process control. For instance, buffered hydrofluoric acid (BHF) is ...
Metal Assisted Chemical Etching (also known as MACE) is the process of wet chemical etching of semiconductors (mainly silicon) with the use of a metal catalyst, usually deposited on the surface of a semiconductor in the form of a thin film or nanoparticles.
Buffered oxide etch (BOE), also known as buffered HF or BHF, is a wet etchant used in microfabrication. It is a mixture of a buffering agent, such as ammonium fluoride NH 4 F, and hydrofluoric acid (HF). Its primary use is in etching thin films of silicon nitride (Si 3 N 4) or silicon dioxide (SiO 2), by the reaction: SiO 2 + 4HF + 2NH 4 F → ...
Wet etching was widely used in the 1960s and 1970s, [144] [145] but it was replaced by dry etching/plasma etching starting at the 10 micron to 3 micron nodes. [146] [147] This is because wet etching makes undercuts (etching under mask layers or resist layers with patterns). [148] [149] [150] Dry etching has become the dominant etching technique ...
In etching, a liquid ("wet") or plasma ("dry") chemical agent removes the uppermost layer of the substrate in the areas that are not protected by photoresist. In semiconductor fabrication, dry etching techniques are generally used, as they can be made anisotropic, in order to avoid significant undercutting of the photoresist pattern. This is ...
The RCA clean is a standard set of wafer cleaning steps which need to be performed before high-temperature processing steps (oxidation, diffusion, CVD) of silicon wafers in semiconductor manufacturing. Werner Kern developed the basic procedure in 1965 while working for RCA, the Radio Corporation of America.
Like surface micromachining, bulk micromachining can be performed with wet or dry etches, although the most common etch in silicon is the anisotropic wet etch. This etch takes advantage of the fact that silicon has a crystal structure, which means its atoms are all arranged periodically in lines and planes. Certain planes have weaker bonds and ...
Xenon difluoride, bromine trifluoride, chlorine trifluoride and fluorine can be used for gaseous silicon etching. [6] [7] Xenon difluoride is most commonly used to etch silicon in academia and industry, because it has a high selectivity towards other semiconductor materials, allows high process control and is easy to use at room temperature. [8 ...