SILICON MICRO-TRENCH ETCHING USING HIGH-DENSITY PLASMA ETCHER

Dry etching of silicon is an essential process step for the fabrication of Micro electromechancal system (MEMS). The AZ7220 positive photo-resist was used as the etching mask and silicon micro-trenches were fabricated with a multiplexed indu ctively coupled plasma (ICP) etcher. The influence of resist pattern profile, an d etch condition on sidewall roughness were investigated detail. The results sho w that the sidewall roughness of micro-trench depends on profiles of photo-resis t pattern, the initial interface between the resist bottom surface and silicon s urface heavily. The relationship between roughness and process optimization para meters are presented in the paper. The roughness of the sidewall has been decrea sed to a 20-50nm with this experiment.