Silicon etching process
AssigneeTexas Instruments Incorporated
InventorsAlan R. Reinberg, Raman K. Rao
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In the manufacture of semiconductor devices it is often times necessary to use photomasks. It has been found that silicon material is useful as see-through photomasks when deposited on a thin film of glass. After deposition the silicon is etched to form the mask. A suitable etchant, which may be used and which does not undercut patterned material formed over the silicon, may be derived from a composition of CCl.sub.4 + N.sub.2 + Cl.sub.2 and in some instances + HCl. This etchant may also be used in patterning polysilicon leads on various silicon devices such as charged coupled devices without undercutting of the leads.
Claims11
A process for etching silicon comprising the step of:
- contacting said silicon with a plasma derived from a gas comprising CCl.sub.4, an inert gas, and a gas selected from a group consisting of Cl.sub.2 and HCl.
A process for making a silicon photo-mask comprising the steps of:
- depositing a layer of silicon on a substrate;
- and
- patterning said silicon layer with a plasma derived from a gas comprising CCl.sub.4, an inert gas, and a gas selected from a group consisting of Cl.sub.2 and HCl.
A process for manufacturing a high density semiconductor device having a plurality of components formed thereon and interconnected by very small silicon interconnecting patterns comprising the steps of:
- depositing a layer of insulating material over the surface of said semiconductor device;
- patterning said layer of insulating material to expose contact areas to be interconnected;
- depositing a layer of silicon on said contact areas and said layer of insulating material;
- and
- etching said layer of silicon with a plasma derived from a gas comprising CCl.sub.4, an inert gas, and a gas selected from a group consisting of Cl.sub.2 and HCl so as to remove unwanted portions of said layer of silicon to leave the desired silicon interconnection patterns.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.