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US 7,365,016 B2Granted
Anhydrous HF release of process for MEMS devices
AssigneeDALSA Semiconductor Inc.
InventorsLuc Ouellet, Ghislain Migneault, Jun Li
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of etching a sacrificial oxide layer covering an etch-stop silicon nitride underlayer, involves exposing the sacrificial oxide to anhydrous HF at a temperature of less than about 100° C. and/or at vacuum level lower than 40 Torr; and subsequently performing an in-situ vacuum evaporation of etch by-products at a temperature of more than about 100° C. and at vacuum level lower than the 40 Torr without exposure to ambient air.
Claims23
A method of making a MEMS device containing mechanical parts, comprising:
- etching away a sacrificial oxide layer covering an etch-stop silicon nitride underlayer to release said mechanical parts, which are formed on said sacrificial oxide layer, by exposing the sacrificial oxide layer to anhydrous HF at a temperature of less than about 100° C. and/or at a vacuum level greater than 40 Torr, said etching away of said sacrificial oxide layer on said silicon nitride layer leaving fluorine-containing ammonium etch byproducts resulting from said anhydrous HF attacking said underlying silicon nitride layer;
- and
- subsequently subjecting said etch by-products to a temperature of more than about 100° C. and at vacuum level lower than 40 Torr without exposure to ambient air to perform an in-situ vacuum sublimation of said etch by-products.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.