Imperfections in the develop step following exposure of photoresist or photo-definable BCB films can lead to yield loss due to residues or irregular edges of the patterned feature. The use of plasma treatments to address this goes back over 20 years to the origins of Tegal Corporation and our production of the industry's first single-wafer etch tool, the Plasmaline 700, in the late 1970's.

Today, Tegal 901ACS™ and 981ACS™ diode plasma reactors are ideal for the post-develop descum of these polymer films because they offer up to 4:1 anisotropy at low temperature (< 40°C). The process repeatability and uniformity are far superior to the results achieved with high temperature ashers adapted to this use. Tegal diode systems also have the flexibility to use alternative non-oxygen gas chemistry to avoid unwanted oxidation of sensitive underlying films like permalloy (NiFe) or copper.

Plasma descum and trim process conditions can be adjusted to achieve repeatable etch rates from 100 nm/minute to over 1000 nm/minute— ideal for high throughput no matter what amount of material must be removed.

Tegal's low temperature processing is also ideal to treat the surface of polymer films prior to patterned metal plating or other aqueous processing steps that can suffer yield loss due to poor wetability and bubble formation.

The cassette-to-cassette substrate transport system can be adapted to a wide variety of substrate materials from ceramics to silicon to glass and a wide variety of shapes including 3 inch to 8 inch rounds and 4 inch to 6 inch squares.

901ACS™ and 981ACS™ are trademarks of Tegal Corporation