During deposition, it is not possible to deposit a material only in the places that we need.

The
material will get deposited in excess and throughout the wafer. This excess material and the
material in unwanted places must be removed. The removal has to be done carefully, as
otherwise material may also be removed from places where it is actually needed. Thus, the
removal is relatively slow. A fast removal of material may be called dissolution, while the
slow removal that is used in IC manufacturing is called etching.
Two types of removal techniques employed in this are
(1) Removal by using liquids, called wet etching
(2) Removal by using gases, called dry etching

WET ETCHING
Wet etching is a material removal process that uses liquid chemicals or etchants to remove
materials from a wafer. The specific patters are defined by masks on the wafer. Materials that
are not protected by the masks are etched (removed) away by liquid chemicals. These masks
are deposited and patterned on the wafers in a prior fabrication step using lithography.
In this method, a solution which can etch the material will be kept in a tank and the wafer will
be dipped in the tank for a given time, at a given temperature. The excess material will be
etched from the wafer. 10 or 20 or 25 wafers may be etched at the same time. After etching,
the wafers will be taken out and rinsed in water and dried by spinning. If it is dried without
spinning, some water may remain on the wafer leaving certain marks, called water marks. It
is difficult to deposit or etch material in those locations. Hence spin drying is employed. Even
with spin drying, watermarks may form sometime, and in order to avoid it, isopropyl alcohol
(IPA) is used for final rinse and spin drying.

WET ETCHANTS
There are number of different types of etchants that can be used to etch different substrate
materials.
Isotropic etchants: (SiO2, Si3N4 etc..)
A very common silicon etchant is called HNA. H stands for hydrofluoric, N stands for nitric
and A stands for either acetic acid or aqua that is water.
Hydrofluoric acid (HF)
HNO3 (Nitric acid)
CH3COOH (Acetic acid)
These etchants can be used effectively at room temperature
Anisotropic etchants: (silicon substrates)
Alkaline chemicals with pH>12 are used for anisotropic etching. Populae anisotropic etchants
for silicon includes
Potassium Hydroxide (KOH)
Ethylene Diamine Pyrocathechol (EDP)
Tetramethyl Ammonium Hydroxide (TMAH)
Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH)
N2H4H2O (Hydrazine)
Most etchants based on the above chemicals are diluted with water, normally 1:1 by weight.
Typical ranges for etching rates for common substrate materials with these etchants are given
below

WET ETCHING MECHANISM

The wet etching process involves:
Transport of reactants to the surface
Surface reaction
Transport of products from the surface
For making the etching process to progress, we must have some means of relieving the
reaction products from the site. This can be facilitated by stirring. So when we are doing a
wet etching stir the etching solution to achieve uniformity of etching. Stirring is going to
serve both first and third purpose. That is it is going to facilitate diffusion of reacting species
and it is also going to cart away your reaction products from the reaction site.

DRY ETCHING

Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) is a much higher-aspect-ratio etching method that
involves
an alternating process of high-density plasma etching (as in RIE) and protective polymer
deposition to achieve greater aspect ratios
. Dry etching.
In dry etching, chemical reaction occurs between the material on the wafer and
the gases. In this method, the products of the reaction must be gaseous.
Otherwise, the product will remain on the wafer. Gases can etch only a few
materials in the normal state. However, if we create plasma in the etching
chamber, the gas molecules will split into ions, atoms and radicals. These are
highly reactive and will react with almost any material.

Whatever may be the gas, if the voltage applied to the plates is removed, the
plasma will disappear and the etching will stop. This is one major advantage of
dry etching. We can start and stop the etching in a very short period of time. In
case of wet etching, even if we take the wafer out of the bath, some of the
chemicals will be on the surface of the wafer and will continue to etch the
material until it is thoroughly washed and all the chemicals are removed.

In dry etching, the unidirectional etching is achieved due to two reasons. Since
the plasma reacts with the material, heat will be generated. The photo resist will
soften a bit and flow down. The flowing film will react with the plasma and form a
hard layer, called veil. The veil will not react further with the plasma and will
protect the side walls.

Wet Etching
No expensive equipment required
Corrosive Acids or alkalies used
Waste products are also corrosive
Difficult to automate
Limitations in the aspect ratio for
vertical structures

Dry Etching
Carried out in plasma reactor
Safe non-toxic gases, e.g. O2 & CF4
used
Waste products are easily discharged
Ease of automation
Extended processes for high aspect
ratio