RIE/PECBD

Description

Reactive ion etching (RIE) is an etching technique that uses chemically reactive plasma to remove material on substrate such as semiconductor wafers. The plasma is generated under vacuum by an electromagnetic field. Feed gases are ionized and strike on substrate surfaces knocking off materials in a combination of chemical as well as physical reaction. One RIE system has supplied gases of CHF3, SF6, O2, Ar good for Si, SiO2, SiC etc etching. Another RIE system has supplied gases of CH4, H2, O2 good for III-V group semiconductor such as GaAS etching. Etch rate from tenths nanometre per minute up to hundreds nanometre per minutes is achievable depending on the nature of processing. Plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) is a process to deposit thin films in nanometre and micron scale on a substrate using reactive gases with the assistant of plasma. The plasma is generated by RF (AC) frequency radiation between two electrodes inside the reaction chamber, which is filled with the reactive gases. Solid films form on substrate surface and reaction chamber side wall by enhanced chemical reactions at elevated temperature. Our PECVD system is fitted with SiH4, N2O for SiO2 and SiH4, NH4 for Si3N4 deposition.