Reactive Ion Etching (RIE)

Deep anisotropic silicon etching up to some tens of µm, etching of SiC and surface cleaning  of different materials in oxygen can be carried out using fluorine containing gases with the SENTECH reactive ion etching tool.

Facility SI 500 (SENTECH Instruments GmbH)

Type	Single chamber parallel plate reactor
Specifications	Process chamber	Inner diameter 300 mm, 270 mm high, with Laser-interferometer Etch-stop
	Electrodes	Upper electrode with gas shower, 250 mm diameter Substrate electrode for up to 200 mm wafers with three lifting pins, cooled or heated in the temperature range -30 < T(°C) < 80
	RF-supply	ICP source up to 1200 W, RF source up to 800 W, frequency 13.56 MHz
	Load lock	Automatic single wafer pneumatic vacuum load lock
	Gas flow	8 channels (SF6, CF4, O2, Ar, C4F8 with MFC controlling)
	Operating mode	Automatical mode with SPS controlling coupled to a PC, SENTECH software
Current applications	Isotropic etching of SiC using SF6+O2 or CF4+O2, etch rate 40 nm/min, usual etch depth up to 200 nm
	Anisotropic etching of Si using SF6+O2 and thermally grown SiO2 as etch mask, etch rate 1 µm/min, etch depth of trenchs < 20 µm, selectivity RSi/RSiO2 > 130, anisotropy 0.97.