Statistical Modeling Of Ion Energy Measured With A Non-Invasive Ion Energy Analyzer (Niea) From Reactive Ion Etching Of Au Films

Au has been used in GaAs-based high-speed devices as an interconnect material and for liquid-crystal-display(LCD)-driver integrated circuit (IC) bumping and packaging in the area of LCD manufacturing, principally because of its high electrical conductivity and relative chemical inertness. Although patterning of Au is generally performed in a wet etching process, it is desirable to develop a plasma etching process for finer pattern generation in further miniaturization of microelectronics products. The objective of this study is to develop a plasma etching process for Au patterning based on statistical modeling by employing non-invasive ion energy analyzer (NIEA) data. We performed a series of plasma etchings according to the design of experiment and provided an ANOVA analysis and a response surface analysis regarding the factors of RF power, pressure, CF(4), and Ar. We noticed that the ion energy measured during the Au etch was directly related to the RF power and that etch rate was directly proportional to the measured ion energy.