Study of rounded concave and sharp edge convex corners undercutting in CMOS compatible anisotropic etchants

Abstract

In this paper, we have studied the undercutting at rounded concave and sharp convex corners in (1 0 0)-silicon wafers using a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH) solution with and without surfactant. In order to minimize the undercutting at both corner types while keeping reasonable etch rates, smooth etched-surfaces and CMOS compatibility, the non-ionic surfactant NC-200 that contains 100% polyoxyethylene-alkyl-phenyl-ether is considered. The effect of concentration and etching temperature is studied using 10, 20 and 25 wt% TMAH solutions at 60, 70 and 80 °C. When NC-200 at 0.1% of the total volume of the etchant is used, the undercutting ratio at both rounded concave and sharp convex corners is beneficially reduced as the etchant concentration is increased while, simultaneously, the etch rate increases. This is the opposite trend to the etch characteristics of pure TMAH. In addition, the rough etched surface morphology at low concentration is also improved by using NC-200.