Syndion Product Family

Syndion Product Family

Products

Deep Reactive Ion Etch (DRIE) Reactive Ion Etch (RIE)

Interconnect, Packaging, Sensors & Transducers

Plasma etch processes used to remove silicon and other materials deep into the wafer are collectively referred to as deep silicon etch. These deep trenches, through silicon vias (TSVs), and other high aspect ratio (HAR) features are created by etching through multiple materials sequentially, where each new material involves a change in the etch process. As they are often electrically isolating or connecting structures, even slight variation from target results can negatively impact device performance.

Lam’s Syndion® etch product family is optimized for deep silicon etch, providing the fast process switching with depth and cross-wafer uniformity control required to achieve precision etch results.


Industry Challenges

Deep silicon etch is critical to the manufacture of devices used in a range of important applications from mobile products, automotive, and security to big data – servers, cloud computing, and graphics. For example, pixel isolation in CMOS image sensors (CIS) for smartphones and TSVs that connect stacked die and memory cells involve tall structures formed by these etch processes. With continued scaling, aspect ratios are increasing. In deep trench isolation, this is due to smaller critical dimensions (CDs) and deeper trenches, while for TSVs, shrinking CDs increase this ratio. One approach for creating these structures is to quickly switch between etch and deposition, thereby both carving the feature and layering material on the walls to protect them. Due to higher aspect ratios and multiple materials being etched, managing sidewall “scallop” size and roughness; top and bottom CD, etch depth, and cross-wafer uniformity; and profile tilt is now more challenging than ever. In addition, these larger features require high etch rates to maintain productivity for cost-efficient manufacturing.

KEY CUSTOMER BENEFITS

  • Rapidly Alternating Process (RAP) minimizes damage and delivers precise depth uniformity for trench aspect ratios as high as 100:1
  • Low cost of ownership due to high etch rates, excellent repeatability, and in-situ etching of multiple materials in the TSV stack (silicon, dielectrics, and conducting films)
  • Best-in-class productivity and manufacturing performance, leveraging learning from Lam’s full suite of RIE etch systems

Product Offerings

  • Syndion® C
  • Syndion® F Series

KEY APPLICATIONS

  • Deep trench isolation and TSV for CMOS image sensors
  • TSV for high-bandwidth memory
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