Demonstration of Ion Energy Distribution Control in a Capacitively Coupled Plasma

Precision control of the ion energy distribution (IED) in plasma etching is becoming increasingly important to produce high-quality high-aspect-ratio (HAR) features for solid-state non-volatile memory storage. Precision control of the IED is required to minimize bowing and twisting defects in HAR features. Eagle Harbor Technologies (EHT), Inc. has an experimental test bed that consists of a capacitively coupled plasma source driven by a 60 MHz radio frequency generator. The bias tailored voltage waveform is produced by EHT Rapid Capacitor Charger that can charge capacitance to high voltage in tens of nanoseconds and operate at 400 kHz. EHT will present IED measurements made with a retarding field energy analyzer showing control of the IED over different tailored waveform parameters. Based on these measurements, the next steps will be discussed.