Can SEA (Semiconductor Equipment Assessment) also deliver for MEMS?

This article reports on the results of the ``I- SPEEDER{''} project, a SEA (Semiconductor Equipment Assessment) project jointly managed by three European partners : Alcatel Vacuum Technology France, Robert Bosch GmbH Germany and Perkin Elmer Optoelectronics GmbH Germany. The goal of this 16 months project (March 2000/June 2001), was to enhance the capabilities of deep, dry ICP, Silicon etch processes in order to extend the limits of microfabrication to further meet the needs of MEMS manufacturers. The project assessed an advanced Alcatel prototype tool based on the Alcatel 601E platform and targeted improving the already very high etch rate, selectivity and uniformity of the current Alcatel production tool, The process technology underlying this prototype assessment is the so-called ``Bosch process{''}, This process is nowadays widely used on inductively coupled plasma equipment for the deep reactive ion etching technology in silicon micromachining. The implementation of hardware and software upgrades on the A 601 tool lead to enhanced etch performance, A silicon etch rate of 13 mum/min is achieved on a 150 mm wafer size, stable and repeatable under production conditions, All other performance features like uniformity of the etch, mask erosion and selectivity are improved by a factor of two compared to state-of-the-art processing.