Lecture 6

MICROSYSTEMS ENGINEERING

Dr.-Ing. Ronny Gerbach

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 Contents of Last Lecture

■ Polymer materials and their applications

■ Introduction into thin film technologies
■ Mechanical basics for thin films
■ Plasma and vacuum environment conditions
■ Mode of film growth
■ Conformity of thin films
■ Structure Zone Model by Thornton
■ Methods for thin film generation
■ Thermal Oxidation of silicon

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 Course Outline

1) Introduction
2) Clean Rooms and Yield
3) Materials for Microsystem Engineering
4) Thin Film Technology
5) Lithography
6) MEMS Technologies
7) Introduction into Packaging Technologies
8) Alternative Approaches for Microsystem Engineering

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 Introduction Thin Film Technology

Generation of thin films

Modification of thin films

“Removal” of thin films

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 Generation of Thin Films

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 Physical Vapor Deposition

■ Coating / deposition caused by physical effects

 film material supplied by physical processes
■ Types of PVD:
■ Evaporation processes (mostly pure metals and oxides)
■ Resistance heating
■ Induction heating
■ E-beam evaporation
■ Laser evaporation

■ Sputtering (e.g. metals, alloys, insulators,…)

■ DC sputtering
■ RF sputtering
■ Reactive sputtering

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 Physical Vapor Deposition
– Thermal Vapor Deposition
Fundamental principle of thermal
vapor deposition (evaporation)

1) Thermal evaporation of material

(1000°C – 3000°C)

2) Transfer of vapor particles /

molecules to substrate

3) Condensation on „cold“ substrate

(100-400°C) and on chamber walls

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 Physical Vapor Deposition
– Thermal Vapor Deposition
Evaporation from “Boat”
■ Flow of an electrical current through
boat
Vapor
■ Ohmic resistance leads to heating up Melted material
Tungsten “boat”

■ Boat is usually made of tungsten Electrical

contact
(𝑇m,W = 3422°C) Isolation

■ Partially covered boat prevents

spilling from crucible
Resistance heater

■ Evaporation rate strongly dependent

on temperature and thus hard to
control
■ Alternative evaporation by inductive
heating

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 Physical Vapor Deposition
– Thermal Vapor Deposition
Electron beam evaporation
■ Electron beam is focused on a small area of the starting material
 material is only locally melted
 no film contamination due to deposition of boat material
 very high temperatures can be achieved

Locally melted
Vapor material
un-melted
material
Water cooling

Deflection magnet
Electron beam
Anode
Hot cathode

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 Physical Vapor Deposition
– Thermal Vapor Deposition
■ Parameters of evaporated metal films  Structure Zone by Movchan
and Demchishin (1969)

transition to
evaporation
material

For high melting points of the evaporation material zones 2 and 3 can‘t
be reached anymore

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 Physical Vapor Deposition
– Thermal Vapor Deposition
Principal setup of a vapor deposition equipment
■ Vacuum system
■ Evaporation source Oscillation quartz
Rotating substrate supports
■ Shutter, for process time control Substrate heater
Bakeable
■ Oscillation quartz for online recipient

■ Thickness control Recipient

heater
■ Rotating substrate supports
Vapor
flow
■ Heating of recipient

Rotatable
shutter
Vacuum
pump Vaporization
source

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 Generation of Thin Films

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 Physical Vapor Deposition – Sputtering
Fundamental principle of sputtering:
1) Ionization of noble gases atoms in plasma (e.g. Ar)
2) Acceleration of noble gas ions by an electrical field
3) “Sputtering” of solid material because of ion bombardment
4) Transport of target material to substrate
5) Material condensation on substrate
High voltage duct

Cathode

Target
(cooled)
Ar-Plasma
Process gases
(Argon, Target
reactive gases) material
Wafer
substrate
Anode

Vacuum pump RF- DC-

Sputtering Sputtering

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 Physical Vapor Deposition – Sputtering
■ Material deposition in high vacuum environment
■ Higher kinetic energy of “sputtered” solid particles in comparison
to thermal vapor evaporation  increased adhesion to wafer
substrate
■ Deposition of several kinds of materials as thin films
■ Metals and alloys  conductors
■ Semiconductors
■ Ceramic materials and glasses  Isolators
■ (Polymers)
■ Sputter yield = average number of atoms ejected from the target
per incident (for Ar  0.1…3)
■ Heating-up of the target by ion bombardment  target cooling
required
■ Integration of gas atoms in deposited thin film
■ Better film conformity in comparison to thermal vapor deposition

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 Physical Vapor Deposition – Sputtering

Types of sputter processes

■ DC-Sputtering:
■ DC voltage (3-5 kV) between target (cathode) and anode  enables sputtering
of conductive materials

■ RF-Sputtering:
■ Use of high AC voltage (frequency: 13.56 MHz or multiple)

■ Electrons can’t follow RF-signal but Ar+ ions not  increase of plasma rate
resulting in the possibility to reduce the process pressure for the same sputter
rate which enables different grain structure of deposited film

■ Movement of Ar+ ions to target because of superpositioned DC offset

■ Enables sputtering of isolators with less heating of substrate wafer

■ Increased sputter rate (approx. 10x higher than for DC sputtering at same
pressure)

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 Physical Vapor Deposition – Sputtering

Types of sputter processes

■ Bias-Sputtering:
■ Voltage supply of substrate and target using two different RF generators
■ Enables better control of sputter process by increased collisions of Ar+ with
substrate wafer by remove of surface contaminations and energy input in
deposited film
■ Inverse bias voltage  remove of material on wafer substrate (sputter etching)
■ Magnetron-Sputtering (feature of most system):
■ Introduction of a magnet field in the near of the target wafer  superposition of
electric and magnetic field causes Helix movement of electrons  higher
plasma rate because of additional collisions of electron with Ar atoms
■ Increase of deposition rate at low voltages
■ Reactive Sputtering:
■ Supply of reactive gases into process chamber  chemical reaction of the
target material
■ Application: sputtering of oxides and nitrides

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 Generation of Thin Films

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 Physical Vapor Deposition – CVD Processes

■ Chemical vapor deposition (CVD)  based on chemical reaction of

precursor materials at the wafer surface
■ Fundamental principle:
■ Diffusion of precursors to the wafer surface
■ Surface reaction of precursors (adsorption on surface, chemical reaction,
desorption of reaction product)
■ Diffusion of reaction product

Gas flow

Precursor 1 Precursor 2

Gaseous Reacting
gases
Gaseous

Deposition
Solid layer

Wafer substrate

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 Physical Vapor Deposition – CVD Processes
Types of CVD processes
■ Low Pressure CVD (LPCVD) = deposition in vacuum
■ Pressure: 0.01 – 10 mbar
■ Deposition temperature: 400-1000 °C
■ Good step coverage of deposited film, limited by chemical reaction
■ Examples:
■ Poly Si:

■ Si3N4:

Quarz boat with wafers

Reaction Vacuum
Process
products pump
gas

Heating

Media supply

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 Physical Vapor Deposition – CVD Processes
Types of CVD processes
■ Atmospheric pressure CVD (APCVD) = CVD at atmospheric pressure
■ Pressure: 1 bar
■ Deposition temperature: above 1000°C  suitable for epitaxial film growth
■ Decreased step coverage of deposited film, limited by material diffusion
■ Examples:
■ Poly or mono Si:

■ Plasma Enhanced CVD (PECVD) = activation energy delivered by

gas discharge in plasma
■ Pressure: 1 mbar
■ Deposition temperature: 200-500 °C Electrode (Anode)
with “showerheads”
■ Good step coverage Area for chemical
reaction
■ Examples: SiO2 and Si3N4 layers Wafer
Wafer chuck with
heating / cooling

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 Comparison PVD - CVD

Process PVD processes CVD Processes

Evaporation Sputtering APCVD LPCVD PECVD
Temperature ~ 100°C < 300°C >1000°C 400-1000 °C 200-500 °C
Pore density High Medium Medium Low Low
Contaminations Low High High Low Low
Adhesion Not good Good Not good Good Good
Conformity / Very poor Poor Poor Good Good
step coverage

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 Generation of Thin Films

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 Electrochemical Deposition – Galvanic

-+
■ Electroplating (ECD):
■ Deposition of metals in aqueous Cathode Anode

environment using electrical currents Wafer

to dissolve metallic cations

■ Materials: Cu, Au, Cr, NiFe,…
■ Application: Via filling Metall ions
(e.g. Cu2+)

■ Electroless plating:
■ Deposition of metals in aqueous
environment by reduction of metal
ions without external currents
■ Realization of conform films, mask
less process
■ Materials: Ni, NiAu, NiPdAu
■ Application: UBM metallization

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 Spin-Coating Processes
Fundamental principle of spin-coating:
1) Deposit fluid (= material + solvent) onto
wafer substrate

2) Accleration of wafer to final radial velocity

 fluid distribution across wafer

3) “Thinning” of fluid to target thickness by

radial velocity

4) If needed: “edge bead” removal

5) Curing / evaporation of solvent

 Application: photo resists, passivation
materials (e.g. PI), spin-on-glasses
Source: Laurell Technologies

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