This document summarizes a lecture on silicon bulk micromachining techniques. It discusses the purpose of bulk micromachining as selectively removing silicon to fabricate sensors, actuators, and structures. The key fabrication methods are dry and wet etching. Isotropic wet etching occurs in all directions, while anisotropic wet etching etches faster in some crystal directions. Reactive ion etching (RIE) provides anisotropic dry etching using chemical and physical reactions. Deep RIE allows high aspect ratio etching for microstructures.
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6037.ppt
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Fundamentals of Multiscale Fabrication
Lecture 3
Multiscale fabrication II:
Silicon bulk micromachining
Kahp-Yang Suh
Associate Professor
SNU MAE
sky4u@snu.ac.kr
Paper reading: “Bulk Micromachining of Silicon”, Proceedings of The IEEE,
GREGORY T. A. KOVACS, NADIM I. MALUF, AND KURT E. PETERSEN, Vol 86,
No. 8, pp 1536-1551, 1998.
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Title: Fabrication techniques of convex corners in a (100)-silicon wafer using bulk micromachining: a review
Author(s): Pal P, Sato K, Chandra S
Source: JOURNAL OF MICROMECHANICS AND MICROENGINEERING Volume: 17 Issue: 10 Pages:
R111-R133 Published: OCT 2007
Times Cited: 7
Title: Micromachining for optical and optoelectronic systems
Author(s): Wu MC
Source: PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE Volume: 85 Issue: 11 Pages: 1833-1856 Published: NOV 1997
Times Cited: 181
Title: Silicon microstructuring technology
Author(s): Lang W
Source: MATERIALS SCIENCE & ENGINEERING R-REPORTS Volume: 17 Issue: 1 Pages: 1-
55 Published: SEP 1996
Times Cited: 94
Title: Development of surface micromachining techniques compatible with on-chip electronics
Author(s): French PJ
Source: JOURNAL OF MICROMECHANICS AND MICROENGINEERING Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Pages: 197-
211 Published: JUN 1996
Times Cited: 25
Further readings (ISI web search)
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Micromachining
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Si Micromachining Methods
SFB: Silicon Fusion Bonding
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Bulk Micromachining
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Benefits of Si bulk micromachining
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Etching Process
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• The purpose of bulk micromachining
- Selectively remove significant amounts of silicon from a substrate
- Broadly applied in the fabrication of micromachined sensors,
actuators, and structures
• Fabrication method: dry/wet etching
- Undercut structures that are required to physically move
- Form membranes on one side of a wafer
- Make a variety of trenches, holes, or other structures
Bulk Micromachining
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Figure 1. Bulk silicon micromachining: (a) isotropic etching; (b) anisotropic etching;
(c) Anisotropic etching with buried etch-stop layer; (d) dielectric membrane released by
back-side bulk etching; (e) dopant dependent wet etching; (f) anisotropic dry etching
Bulk Micromachining
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Terminology:
Etch Rate – How fast material is removed
Selectivity – Ratio of etch rates of materials exposed to etching
Anisotropy – Degree of lateral etch to vertical etch
Wet Etching – chemical bath
Dry Etching – chemical / physical material removal using gas / vapor
Dry Etching Wet Etching
Production-Line
Automation
Good Poor
Cost chemicals Low High
Selectivity Poor Can be very good
Sub-micron features Applicable Not Applicable
Etch Rate Slow (0.1um/min) Fast (1 um/min)
(Madou)
Bulk Micromachining
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Silicon Crystallography (1)
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Silicon Crystallography (2)
(see MEMS Open Courseware: Readings_Etc)
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• Isotropic wet etching
- Etching with chemical reaction
etching in all directions a substrate
- Induces etch reaction with silicon through
the opening region
agitation required: stirring, ultrasonic
- Considering opening area to size of reaction bubble
Bubble disturbs exchange of etchant
Slow down etch rate
- The most common isotropic wet silicon etchant: HNA
HNA = HF + HNO3 + CH3COOH
Reaction: 18HF + 4HNO3 + 3Si 2H2SiF6 + 4NO(g) + 8H2O
Isotropic Wet Etching
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• Anisotropic wet etching
- Anisotropic etchants etch much faster
in on direction than in another
exposing the slowest etching crystal
planes over time
(111) planes have the slowest etch rate
- Several solutions:
Alkalic OH (KOH, NaOH)
Tetramethylammonium hydroxide (THAH, (CH3)4NOH)
Ethylenediamine pyrocatechol (EDP, NH2 (CH2)2
NH2+C6H4(OH)2)
- Etching at concave corners on (100), stop at (111) intersections.
Convex corners are under cut
Anisotropic Wet Etching
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Example of Anisotropic Wet Etching
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Anisotropic Etching Mechanism
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• Xenon Difluoride Etching (XeF2)
- Non-plasma, isotropic dry etch process
- Very high selectivity for Al, SiO2, Si3N4, PR
- Reaction: 2XeF2 + Si 2Xe + SiF4
- Etch rate: 1 ~ 3 m/min
- Drawback: Rough surface
reaction with water (HF)
silicon fluoride polymer
- Use of BF3 ~ much smooth surface
Dry Etching
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Example of isotropic Dry Etching
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• Plasma/Reactive Ion Etching (RIE)
- Anisotropic dry etch process
- Process in which chemical etching is accompanied by ion bombardment
- Combination of physical and chemical etching
Dry Etching
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RIE principles
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- Etch mask: PR (Photo Resist), Hard mask (SiO2, Al)
- Selectivity
= etch rate of etching material / etch rate of mask
- Usually, standard PR (for CMOS) is not adequate for O2
plasma etch, for which hard mask is required
- Selectivity of silicon: AZ1512
Cl based etch (physical etch): <2
F based etch (chemical etch): <10
(if O2 gas is inserted into the chamber, the selectivity
would be smaller than 10)
Mask materials for RIE
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Reaction in RIE process (1)
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Reaction in RIE process (2)
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Example using BCl3
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Reaction in RIE process (3)
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Example using SF6
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Deep reactive ion etching (DRIE)
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- In wet etchants, the etch reactants come from a liquid source
- In dry etchants, the etch reactants come from a gas or vapor phase
source and are typically ionized
Atom or ions from the gas are the reactive species that etch the
exposed film
- Selectivity: in general, dry etching has less selectivity than wet
etching
- Anisotropy: in general, dry etching has higher degree of anisotropy
than wet etching
- Etch rate: in general, dry etching has lower etch rate than wet etching
- Etch control: dry etching is much easier to start and stop than wet
etching
Wet etching vs. Dry etching
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MEMS: Deposition + Lithography + Sacrificial Etching