Plasma etching nitride, oxide, silicon and photoresist in a Glow Research AutoGlow 200 plasma system. Results below show results for etching nitride, oxide, silicon and photoresist removal.
“Autoglow 200 is simple yet powerful, and makes it easy to remove silicon nitride passivation from semiconductor devices.”
Customer: Volodymyr Pikhur” with Hardware Root Research LLC
Here are some before plasma nitride etch (left) and after plasma nitride etch (right) pictures of the 8″ wafer:

Showing nitride removal in the AutoGlow 200. Left = before, Right = after etch.
SF6 or CF4 gas can be used for removing oxide layers or nitride layers. Results on the AutoGlow show the following etch rates for various films as reported from Customers:
- Etching nitride: 800 mTorr, 200 watts, 2 min.,150mm wafer = 212 Angstroms/min (Power can be increased to increase etch rate)
- Etching oxide: 800 mTorr, 400 watts, 10 min, 150mm wafer = 800 Angstroms /min (Power can be increased to increase etch rate)
- Etching silicon: One Customer reports etch rate for silicon of: 1 um/min at 300W and 600 mT.
- Removing photoresist: 750 mTorr, 300 watts, 10 min, 2″ x 2″ substrate = 1000 Angstroms/min
The AutoGlow 200 is a cost effective way to perform Plasma etching passivation nitride, oxide, silicon and photoresist.

AutoGlow 200 for plasma etching, activation and cleaning
The AutoGlow 1000 can also be used for processing 300mm wafers for production applications. Also used for various production plasma treatment, plasma cleaning and photoresist descum.

AutoGlow 1000 production plasma system used for etching, cleaning and surface activation

AutoGlow 1000–showing two sets of electrode shelves
For more process information on oxide etch results in the AutoGlow 1000 click HERE
For more process information on photoresist descum in the AutoGlow 1000, click HERE
For more AutoGlow 200/300 information and a video click HERE
For a partial list of Glow Research Customers click HERE.
Other papers that discuss plasma etching of passivation nitride and oxide–click HERE