Plasma Processing 17

This issue of ECS Transactions contains papers presented at the International Symposium on Plasma Processing. The symposium, 17th in the series, cosponsored by the Dielectric Science & Technology, Electronics, and Photonics Divisions was held as part of the 213th Meeting of The Electrochemical Society, Inc., in Phoenix, AZ, USA, May 18 - 23, 2008. A total of 14 papers were presented from Belgium, Germany, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Russia, and the USA on topics mainly focused on diagnostics & measurements and etching & deposition processes.

Plasma processing of materials is a critical technology to several of the largest manufacturing industries in the worldâ€"electronics, aerospace, automotive, steel, biomedical, and toxic waste management. This book describes the relationship between plasma processes and the many industrial applications, examines in detail plasma processing in the electronics industry, highlights the scientific foundation underlying this technology, and discusses education issues in this multidisciplinary field. The committee recommends a coordinated, focused, and well-funded research program in this area that involves the university, federal laboratory, and industrial sectors of the community. It also points out that because plasma processing is an integral part of the infrastructure of so many American industries, it is important for both the economy and the national security that America maintain a strong leadership role in this technology.

VLSI Electronics: Microstructure Science, Volume 8: Plasma Processing for VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) discusses the utilization of plasmas for general semiconductor processing. It also includes expositions on advanced deposition of materials for metallization, lithographic methods that use plasmas as exposure sources and for multiple resist patterning, and device structures made possible by anisotropic etching. This volume is divided into four sections. It begins with the history of plasma processing, a discussion of some of the early developments and trends for VLSI. The second section, Deposition, discusses deposition techniques for VLSI such as sputtering metals for metallization and contacts, plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition of metals and suicides, and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition of dielectrics. The part on Lithography presents the high-resolution trilayer resist system, pulsed x-ray sources for submicrometer x-ray lithography, and high-intensity deep-UV sources. The last part, Etching, provides methods in etching, like ion-beam etching using reactive gases, low-pressure reactive ion etching, and the uses of inert-gas ion milling. The theory and mechanisms of plasma etching are described and a number of new device structures made possible by anisotropic etching are enumerated as well. Scientists, engineers, researchers, device designers, and systems architects will find the book useful.

This volume deals with the basic knowledge and understanding of fundamental interactions of low energy electrons with molecules. It pro vides an up-to-date and comprehensive account of the fundamental in teractions of low-energy electrons with molecules of current interest in modern technology, especially the semiconductor industry. The primary electron-molecule interaction processes of elastic and in elastic electron scattering, electron-impact ionization, electron-impact dissociation, and electron attachment are discussed, and state-of-the art authoritative data on the cross sections of these processes as well as on rate and transport coefficients are provided. This fundamental knowledge has been obtained by us over the last eight years through a critical review and comprehensive assessment of "all" available data on low-energy electron collisions with plasma processing gases which we conducted at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Data from this work were originally published in the Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data, and have been updated and expanded here. The fundamental electron-molecule interaction processes are discussed in Chapter 1. The cross sections and rate coefficients most often used to describe these interactions are defined in Chapter 2, where some recent advances in the methods employed for their measurement or calculation are outlined. The methodology we adopted for the critical evaluation, synthesis, and assessment of the existing data is described in Chapter 3. The critically assessed data and recommended or suggested cross sections and rate and transport coefficients for ten plasma etching gases are presented and discussed in Chapters 4, 5, and 6.

Pattern transfer by dry etching and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor de position are two of the cornerstone techniques for modern integrated cir cuit fabrication. The success of these methods has also sparked interest in their application to other techniques, such as surface-micromachined sen sors, read/write heads for data storage and magnetic random access memory (MRAM). The extremely complex chemistry and physics of plasmas and their interactions with the exposed surfaces of semiconductors and other materi als is often overlooked at the manufacturing stage. In this case, the process is optimized by an informed "trial-and-error" approach which relies heavily on design-of-experiment techniques and the intuition of the process engineer. The need for regular cleaning of plasma reactors to remove built-up reaction or precursor gas products adds an extra degree of complexity because the interaction of the reactive species in the plasma with the reactor walls can also have a strong effect on the number of these species available for etching or deposition. Since the microelectronics industry depends on having high process yields at each step of the fabrication process, it is imperative that a full understanding of plasma etching and deposition techniques be achieved.

Plasma Processing of Semiconductors contains 28 contributions from 18 experts and covers plasma etching, plasma deposition, plasma-surface interactions, numerical modelling, plasma diagnostics, less conventional processing applications of plasmas, and industrial applications. Audience: Coverage ranges from introductory to state of the art, thus the book is suitable for graduate-level students seeking an introduction to the field as well as established workers wishing to broaden or update their knowledge.

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Plasma Treatments and Deposition of Polymers, Acquafredda di Maratea, Italy, May 19-June 2, 1996