The Centura platform cluster-chamber system was acquired from Applied Materials and installed in the UCB Microlab in the spring of 2003. The system consists of dual loadlocks, a six inch multi-wafer, high throughput processing capacity, and two high performance etching chambers. One of the etch chambers is the DPS DT (Decoupled Plasma Source Deep Trench) deep silicon etcher. This chamber may serve as a DRIE (Deep Reactive Ion Etch) system with added capabilities. The accompanying chamber configured to the system is the MxP oxide etcher. Likewise the MxP serves as a high performance six-inch wafer oxide etch tool. After installation of the system into The UCB Microlab, Applied performed a “Tier 1” hardware qualification. This was followed by the attempt of a “Tier 2” process qualification. . The MxP chamber met all of the required process specifications listed in the Tier 2 qualification. However, after several months of poor results under the guidance of Applied process staff, BSAC engineering took ownership of the Tier 2 process characterization for the DPS deep silicon process. Two design of experiments were performed and the DPS chamber was thoroughly characterized. From this, a baseline deep si etch process was successfully developed. The results of the characterization are to be presented.
Project end date: 01/20/05