Comparison of wet and dry chrome etching with the CORE-2564

Peter D. Buck; Brian J. Grenon

doi:10.1117/12.167247

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15 February 1994 Comparison of wet and dry chrome etching with the CORE-2564

Peter D. Buck, Brian J. Grenon

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Proceedings Volume 2087, 13th Annual BACUS Symposium on Photomask Technology and Management; (1994) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.167247
Event: 13th Annual BACUS Symposium on Photomask Technology and Management, 1993, Santa Clara, CA, United States

Abstract

Chrome masks have traditionally been wet etched in an acidic solution of cerric ammonium nitrate. The etchant is commonly sprayed on the mask while the mask is slowly rotated, using an APT-914 or equivalent processor. While this process is well-understood, relatively trouble- free and inexpensive, the isotropic nature of wet etching results in an undercut of the chrome relative to the resist etch mask of approximately equals 150 nm per edge. Compensation for the undercut, in order to maintain control of the mean critical dimension (CD), is done by adjusting the printed feature size such that the undercut grows the printed feature to the desired final size. This sizing can be performed by manipulating the computer aided design database, which can be expensive and time consuming. In this paper, we present a comparison of wet and dry chrome etch processes using plates printed with the CORE-2564 in OCG-895 i resist. The differences in CD performance and resolution are illustrated.

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Peter D. Buck and Brian J. Grenon "Comparison of wet and dry chrome etching with the CORE-2564", Proc. SPIE 2087, 13th Annual BACUS Symposium on Photomask Technology and Management, (15 February 1994); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.167247

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