AVS 56th International Symposium & Exhibition
    Plasma Science and Technology Thursday Sessions
       Session PS-ThP

Paper PS-ThP11
High Performance of Compact Combinatorial Etching Process for Next Generation Plama Nano-Process

Thursday, November 12, 2009, 6:00 pm, Room Hall 3

Session: Plasma Science Poster Session
Presenter: Ch.S. Moon, Nagoya University, Japan
Authors: Ch.S. Moon, Nagoya University, Japan
K. Takeda, Nagoya University, Japan
Y. Setsuhara, Osaka University, Japan
M. Shiratani, Kyushu University, Japan
M. Sekine, Nagoya University, Japan
M. Hori, Nagoya University, Japan
Correspondent: Click to Email

Plasma etching technology is one of technologies, which have been in charge of semiconductor device industry. As it is scaled down to several tens of nanometers, nano-leveled precise control has been indispensable to achieve the process requirements. However, up to now, it was an obvious fact that a lot of trials-and-error processes have been carried out in the development of plasma etching processes in which were characterized by external parameters (input power, working pressure, mixture gas ratio), since there has never been any scientific principle based on plasma science. We hereby propose the development of process map, Plasma Nano Science in which the process results are characterized by internal parameters (fluxes and energy distributions of ions, radicals, substrate temperature). For the breakthrough of next generation plasma nano-process guided by Plasma Nano Science, we have developed the combinatorial plasma etching process, in which a variety of results could be acquired by one trial. In this work, the compact combinatorial plasma apparatus was realized in inductively coupled H2/N2 plasma driven by two low-inductance (LIA) antennas for etching of organic low-k dielectric films. The spatial distributions of H and N radical densities were measured by vacuum ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy (VUVAS) system and RF-compensated Langmuir Probe (Scientific Systems Smart ProbeTM) was used to record the spatial distributions of electron densities, temperatures and energy distributions. In this paper, we present high performances of combinatorial etching process. Etching characteristics such as etch rate and profiles were analyzed in terms of internal parameters rather than conventional external parameters by controlling respective LIA antennas independently.