All Dry Processing of Amorphous Silicon Photoresists

An inorganic photoresist system involving only dry processing has many potential uses in microelectronic fabrication. Reduced wafer contamination and simpler waste disposal requirements will provide a strong driving force for replacing existing wet photolithographic processes with the new system. At the completion of this project, a new inorganic resist system utilizing hydrogenated amorphous silicon will be available to replace many of the wet chemical patterning steps used in current microelectronics, printed circuit board, and flat panel display fabrication. The system uses only silicon and hydrogen, so there is no contamination of silicon wafers and only dry plasma processing is used for deposition and removal of the films. Patterning of the amorphous silicon through UV enhanced oxidation will allow the use of existing exposure tools, or exposure under a partial pressure of oxygen would allow an all vacuum process. The Phase I work will provide proof of concept for the use of amorphous silicon as a dry photoresist. Additionally, detailed design and cost estimates will be generated for a prototype PECVD module optimized for the process developed.