HF Etching

HF Etching

HF Etching - Etching with hydrofluoric acid • Buffered HF etching

HF etching is a form of wet etching that uses hydrofluoric acid to etch out surfaces rather than using a dry plasma process.  HF etching is capable of etching materials such as amorphous silicon dioxide; quartz and glass at very high etch rates. Since  HF etching is a wet process, meaning that it uses chemicals, it creates an isotropic etch. This means that there are curved etched out sections under the etching mask. This is usually not a desirable result because most microfabrication processes require anisotropic etches that plasma etching is capable of achieving.

Buffered HF Etching

Buffered  HF etching is a commonly used technique in microfabrication. Buffered  HF etching, also known as Buffered Oxide etching, uses a mixture of a buffering agent like ammonium fluoride and hydrofluoric acid. Adding the buffering agent to the  HF etchant allows for a more precise etch. Regular  HF etching reacts too quickly for good control and causes the photoresist etching mask to peel. Buffered  HF etching is predominantly used for etching wafers of silicon dioxide or silicon nitride as a part of the integrated circuit fabrication process.

To learn more about etching, check out our eBook titled "Plasma Etching and Cleaning Strategy for Better Product Quality."

Plasma-etching-blog

 

New call-to-action