Re: removing PR after argon dry etching

Neil

Please see me during my office hours 9 - 10 AM Tuesday to Friday at
Allen 31.
I have successfully employed both Microchem Remover PG heated above 40
degrees C and Silicon Valley Chemical NMP based products to remove both
optical and PMMA resist after its has been cross linked thermally and
exposed to fluorine based gases during RIE. Your issue sounds like a
similar problem.

All the Best,

James Conway
Ebeam Lab
SNF.

On 9/28/2010 1:09 PM, Neil Dasgupta wrote:
> Hi labmembers,
>
> I am running into a wall with my new process. We are using 1.6 um of 3612 resist as an etch mask for dry etching in the MRC etcher. Our dry etch recipe is argon sputtering/etching for 10 minutes at 100 W. This causes hardening/texturing of the resist, which looks like craters in the SEM after the dry etch.
>
> The problem is that I have not been able to remove this PR after this hardening occurs. I have tried 10 minutes O2 plasma in drytek 1, followed by acetone sonication for 10 minutes, followed by another O2 descum, but the resist still remains. The samples have Al metal on them, so that I can not use piranha. They are also gold contaminated. I imagine this is a problem people have encountered before, so any advice, especially specific recipes would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Neil Dasgupta