UNIT-II: MICROMACHINING TECHNOLOGIES (MICROFABRICATIONS)

M. S. Dharmaprakash Professor Department of Chemistry, BMS College of Engineering, Bengaluru-560 019

Objectives At the end of this course, you should be able to : Understand the importance of Silicon as substrate materials. Get an overview of physical and chemical techniques for microfabrication/thin films. Learn about lithography and lift-off techniques for patterning thin films. Understand dry and wet chemical etching techniques. Bulk and surface micromachining processes for microsystems Wafer bonding techniques Other materials for Microsystems and their fabrication

INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS MEMS? MEMS = MicroElectroMechanical System Any engineering system that performs electrical and mechanical functions with components in micrometers is a MEMS. (1 m = 1/10 of human hair) Available MEMS products include: Micro sensors (acoustic wave, biomedical, chemical, inertia, optical pressure, radiation, thermal, etc.) Micro actuators (valves, pumps and microfluidics;electrical and optical relays and switches;grippers, tweezers and tongs;linear and rotary motors, etc.) Inkjet printer heads.
Read/write heads in computer storage systems. Micro device components (e.g., palm-top reconnaissance aircrafts, minirobots and toys, micro surgical and mobile telecom equipment, etc.)

HOW SMALL ARE MEMS DEVICES?

in plain English please!

They can be of the size of a rice grain, or smaller! Two examples: -Inertia sensors for air bag deployment systems in automobiles - Microcars

We will begin our studies on microfabrication in the following lines: Silicon as a Material for Micromachining Crystal Structure of Silicon Silicon wafer preparation Thin-Film Deposition Evaporation Sputtering Chemical Vapor Deposition Epitaxial Growth of Silicon Thermal Oxidation of Silicon Dioxide Lithography Photolithography Lift-Off Techniques Etching Isotropic etching Anisotropic etching Etch Stops Dry Etching

Silicon micromachining Bulk Micromachining Surface Micromachining Specialized Materials for Microsystems Polymers Ceramic Materials Advanced Processes for Microfabrication Wafer Bonding Techniques Special Microfabrication Techniques Summary

Materials used for Micromachining: Semiconductors- Si, GaAs Metals Ceramics, glass, quartz, fused silica Polymers and Composites Of all Si is the most sought after substrate material, Thus , Si, silicon dioxide and silicon nitride are the most common materials and hence silicon fabrication technologies are the corner stones of microelectronics fabrication and micromachining. A microsystem consists of substrates with various doped regions for electronics and thin films for mechanical elements. Semiconductor substrates form basic materials in micromachining.

Silicon as a material for Micromachining

Most commonly used semiconductor material for microsystems.

Desirable electrical, optical and mechanical properties. These properties can be modified by dopping and other techniques

Typical values of electrical, mechanical and thermal properties of Si Electrical Minority-carrier life time Energy band gap Lattice spacing Electron affinity 30-300s 1.1eV 5.43 4.05eV

Refractive Index
Dielectric constant Ressistivity (B-dopped) (P-dopped) Resistivity (Intrinsic) Density Dislocations Youngs modulus (100) (110) Poissons ratio Thermal conductivity Thermal expansion Specific heat Melting Point

3.42
11.7 0.005-50 cm 1-50 cm 3.2X105 cm

Mechanical
2.33g/cm3 <<500/cm2 130X109 N/m2 168x109 N/m2 0.22-0.28 Thermal 1.57W/cmC 2.6X10-6/C 0.7J/g /C 1410C

Silicon crystal is made up of two interpenetrating FCC cells

Various crystal planes for a unit cell can be seen in above figure. The atomic bond of surface atoms to those within is strongest in the (111) plane, and hence the crystal growth is esiest and the etching rate is slowest in (111) plane.

Silicon wafer Preparation

Requirement for electronics applications = <<ppb impurity level Quartzite + Carbon Si(90-99% pure) Si+ HCl SiHCl3

SiHCl3 + H2 Si (electronic grade) + HCl

(polycrystalline basic material for making Si wafers) Zone refining technique {>>99.9999 % pure Si (device grade)} Polycrystalline Single crystal Si (Czochralskis Crystal pulling technique ground and polished to get cylindrical/ingot (200mm) sliced to get wafers using high speed diamond saw(thickness varies with the size of the ingot, and ranges from 100m-1mm. The wafers are finally etched chemically and polished to get mirror finish and uniform thickness.

Thin- Film Deposition

Thin films are integral part of IC and microsystems fabrication

Thin film deposition techniques Physical methods Chemical methods Chemical vapour deposition

Evaporation Sputtering Molecular beam epitaxy Laser ablation

Sol-gel technique Spray pyrolysis

Spin coating Atomic layer deposition

Thin fim deposition technology can be classified in two groups:

Depositions that happen because of a chemical reaction: Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) Electrodeposition Epitaxy Thermal oxidation Sol-gel methods-Spin coating and Dip coating

These processes exploit the creation of solid materials directly from chemical reactions in gas and/or liquid compositions or with the substrate material. The solid material is usually not the only product formed by the reaction. Byproducts can include gases, liquids and even other solids. Depositions that happen because of a physical reaction: Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) Evaporation Sputtering Casting

Common for all these processes are that the material deposited is physically moved on to the substrate. In other words, there is no chemical reaction which forms the material on the substrate. This is not completely correct for casting processes, though it is more convenient to think of them that way.

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD)

CVD is an excellent technique for the deposition of oxide thin films. The chemistry of the deposition process controls the microstructure and, hence, the properties, of the films grown.

If materials of improved quality - and those with new properties - are to be produced, it is important to understand the chemistry of film growth.

CVD growth process

CVD growth parameters

Temperature Concentration of reactants Reactor pressure Substrate surface Flow rate Thermodynamic

Precursor the most important parameter