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Wet Etching and Cleaning

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Silicon Sensors and Actuators

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Abstract

Wet chemical processes are vastly employed in microelectronics fabrication industry, either for actively defining functional features or as cleaning and refining steps, preparatory to other key processes. All wet processes are fundamentally hinged on chemical and physical properties of specific liquid formulations in which each component, solvent or chemically active species, is chosen to selectively attack (etch) or remove (clean) target materials or substrates. The following chapter aim is to provide an overview on wet etching and cleaning procedures involved in Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) fabrication. Latest advancements in MEMS technologies and MEMS portfolio widening, with increasingly demanding performance and stringent features, imposed a rapid and flawless update of wet etching and cleaning technologies, to ensure devices’ long-term reliability. Within this figure of merit, specific focus will be dedicated to wet etching (Sect. 12.1) and wet cleaning (Sect. 12.2) in the most significative steps involved in MEMS sensors and actuators manufacturing. Precisely, silicon isotropic and anisotropic wet etching will be tackled and discussed first, as well-established techniques involved in silicon polishing and silicon patterning exploiting silicon crystalline properties, respectively. After e brief reference to dielectrics etching, a subject widely covered in literature, attention will be dedicated to metal etching, and in particular to gold and aluminum, titanium, and titanium–tungsten alloys. Such metal layers play a fundamental role in signal routing and act as physical barrier or seed layer for Electrochemical Deposition (ECD). Surface cleaning and photoresist removal step will be then faced within this chapter. Standard wet cleaning, preparatory to dielectrics or metals deposition, will be thoroughly presented first. Later, specific solvent-based cleanings will be introduced as innovative solutions studied for specific applications, including deep silicon etch, piezoelectric materials definitions, and lift-off processes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For this kind of tools which combine different process stations (wet station for soaking, single wafer high-pressure module, and rinse module) soaking time is not fixed, but depends on wafer handling and process time in all the modules. Hence, for a full cassette (from wafer 1 to wafer 25), lot soaking time is typically a curve (see Fig. 9.18).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ST Microelectronics, Analog MEMS and Sensors Group, MEMS Technology and Design R&D, Agrate Brianza, Monza Brianza, Italy

    Gianluca Longoni, Davide Assanelli & Cinzia De Marco

Authors
  1. Gianluca Longoni
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  2. Davide Assanelli
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  3. Cinzia De Marco
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Correspondence to Gianluca Longoni .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Analog MEMS & Sensors R&D, STMicroelectronics (Italy), Cornaredo, Milano, Italy

    Benedetto Vigna

  2. ST Microelectronics, Analog MEMS and Sensors Group, MEMS Technology and Design R&D, Agrate Brianza, Monza Brianza, Italy

    Paolo Ferrari

  3. ST Microelectronics, Analog MEMS and Sensors Group, MEMS Technology and Design R&D, Agrate Brianza, Monza Brianza, Italy

    Flavio Francesco Villa

  4. Analog, MEMS and Sensors Group, STMicroelectronics (Italy), Cornaredo, Milano, Italy

    Ernesto Lasalandra

  5. Analog, MEMS and Sensors Group, STMicroelectronics (Italy), Cornaredo, Milano, Italy

    Sarah Zerbini

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Longoni, G., Assanelli, D., De Marco, C. (2022). Wet Etching and Cleaning. In: Vigna, B., Ferrari, P., Villa, F.F., Lasalandra, E., Zerbini, S. (eds) Silicon Sensors and Actuators. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80135-9_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80135-9_9

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