Plasma etching passivation nitride and oxide for Failure Analysis (FA)

Plasma etching passivation nitride and oxide for Failure Analysis (FA) in a Glow Research AutoGlow 200 plasma system.

“Autoglow 200 is simple yet powerful, and makes it easy to remove silicon nitride passivation from semiconductor devices.”

Volodymyr Pikhur”

Hardware Root Research LLC

Here are some before plasma nitride etch (left) and after plasma nitride etch (right) pictures of the 8″ wafer:

SF6 gas can be used for removing oxide layers or nitride layers.  Our results on the AutoGlow show the following etch rates for various films:

• 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 and oxide for Failure Analysis (FA)

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