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US 7,071,110 B2Granted
Process for the plasma etching of materials not containing silicon
AssigneeInfineon Technologies AG
InventorsJosef Mathuni, Günther Ruhl
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A process enables plasma etching of materials that do not contain silicon. The process is particularly suitable for the side wall passivation of chromium layers in masks for fabricating semiconductor components. The plasma contains oxygen and/or nitrogen, and at least one silicon-donating compound is introduced into the plasma. This allows efficient passivation of side walls.
Claims7
A plasma-etching process for the fabrication of a mask used in the fabrication of a semiconductor component, which comprises:
- providing a quartz substrate with a chromium layer;
- generating an etching plasma containing at least one of oxygen and nitrogen;
- introducing at least one silicon-donating compound into the plasma, the silicon-donating compound being a gaseous molecule selected from the group consisting of SiH4, SiF4, SiH2Cl2, SiCl2O;
- etching a trench structure in the chromium layer with the etching plasma;
- and
- during the etching step, and after the at least one silicon-donating compound has been added to the plasma, coating the side walls of the trench structure with an SiO2 a layer, an SiO2-like layer, or a silicon nitride layer for the formation of passivation layers.
3 more elements
The process according to claim 4, wherein at least one silicon-donating compound has the formula SiCl2O.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.