JP2008088017A - Method for etching glass substrate - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method for etching a glass substrate which facilitates the fabrication of a silicon mask and improves workability. <P>SOLUTION: The dry etching method of a glass substrate masked by a silicon substrate comprises a step of bonding a silicon substrate 11 on the surface of a glass substrate 12, a step of forming a silicon mask 11M comprising the silicon substrate 11 on the glass substrate 12, a step of etching the glass substrate 12 through the silicon mask 11M, and a step of removing the silicon mask 11M from the glass substrate 12. Herewith, fabrication of the silicon mask 11M to the glass substrate 12 is facilitated, fabrication processes can be simplified because bonding work after forming the mask is dispensable and thereby workability can be improved. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a glass substrate etching method suitable for use in a step of forming a recess or a through hole on the surface of a glass substrate.

  In recent years, development of a microstructure called MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical System) to which thin film manufacturing technology, photolithography technology, and microfabrication technology, which are widely practiced in the field of semiconductor manufacturing, has been advanced. As these microstructures, a pump device using a piezoelectric element, a gyro device, a filter device using a SAW (surface acoustic wave) element, and the like have been proposed. Applications are being made to various device parts that are required to be lighter.

  A MEMS component is used by being mounted on a wiring board in the same manner as a semiconductor or other electric / electronic component. Therefore, a casing structure that can effectively protect internal functional elements from external stress, thermal stress, and the like is indispensable for MEMS parts. Therefore, a glass material such as quartz or borosilicate glass is used for the casing of the MEMS component. For example, Patent Document 1 below discloses a method for manufacturing a multilayer substrate type micropump using a glass substrate for a housing part.

  On the other hand, it is necessary to provide an external terminal in the housing part of the MEMS component in order to electrically connect the internal functional element and the external wiring board. This external terminal can be formed by forming a through hole in a glass substrate that constitutes the casing and forming or filling a conductive material on the inner wall surface or inside of the through hole. For example, Patent Document 2 below discloses a technique for forming a multilayer wiring board by forming a through hole in a glass substrate by sand blasting and filling an inner wall surface of the through hole with a plated wiring or a conductive material.

  In the sand blasting method, as shown in FIGS. 6A and 6B, a mask 9 is formed on the surface of the glass substrate 8, and the surface of the glass substrate 8 facing the opening region of the mask 9 is blasted to form a through hole 10. And there is an advantage that the processing speed is fast.

However, there are disadvantages in that the diameter of the hole is as large as 100 μm or more, a reverse taper shape called chipping is caused on the bottom side of the penetrating hole, and a large number of holes cannot be processed simultaneously. As shown in FIG. 7, the chipping 10p is an abnormally processed mark formed at the periphery of the bottom of the through hole 10 and is formed in a reverse taper shape toward the outer peripheral side of the through hole. Causes serious obstacles to plating and filling.

On the other hand, there is a dry etching method as another technique for forming a recess or a through hole in a glass substrate. In this method, a glass substrate is subjected to plasma etching through a mask formed on the surface thereof to form a recess or a through hole corresponding to the opening shape of the mask. For example, in Patent Document 3 below, a concave portion or a through hole is formed by performing plasma etching of a mixed gas of SF ₆ gas and oxygen gas on a glass substrate through a metal mask made of aluminum formed on the surface of the glass substrate. A method is disclosed.

Dry etching of borosilicate glass currently widely used as a glass substrate is more difficult to etch than quartz glass. The reason is that the components of borosilicate glass include Na (sodium), B (boron), K (potassium), Al (aluminum), etc., which are not found in quartz glass, so these components react with the etching gas. As a result, the etching rate is lowered, and the etched surface is easily roughened. For this reason, a method of performing physical sputter etching by adding a highly reactive etching gas such as SF ₆ or a rare gas such as Ar (argon) or Xe (xenon) is employed.

On the other hand, when etching is performed with SF ₆ as the main gas or when physical sputtering is mainly performed, the amount of mask processing increases, and there is a problem that the selectivity with respect to the mask during etching is lowered. For this reason, it is necessary to increase the formation thickness of the mask for deep digging of borosilicate glass, and it is necessary to use an etching gas with high etching selectivity.

  Therefore, Non-Patent Document 1 below discloses a glass substrate etching method using a silicon substrate as a mask and CF gas as an etching gas. Hereinafter, a glass substrate etching method using this conventional silicon mask will be described with reference to FIG.

  (FIG. 8A) Silicon oxide films 2A and 2B are respectively formed on the front and back surfaces of a silicon substrate 1 having a predetermined thickness, and an aluminum film 3 is formed on the silicon oxide film 2A on the front surface side. Then, a mask pattern made of a laminated film of the silicon oxide film 2A and the aluminum film 3 is formed on the surface of the silicon substrate 1 by photolithography technique, and then dry etching is performed using the mask pattern as a mask. A recess 4 corresponding to the shape of the mask opening is formed.

(FIG. 8B) Next, after removing the mask pattern from the surface of the silicon substrate 1, the silicon substrate 1 is oxidized to form a silicon oxide film 5 on the surface of the silicon substrate 1 including the recesses 4. Further, the silicon oxide film 2B on the back side of the silicon substrate 1 is removed.
(FIG. 8C) Next, the silicon substrate 1 is etched back to a thickness of about 200 μm, and the silicon oxide film 5 covering the recess 4 is exposed on the back side of the silicon substrate 1. The etch back process is performed by wet etching using a TMAH (tetramethylammonium hydroxide) solution.

(FIG. 8D) Next, the thinned silicon substrate 1 is bonded to the surface of a glass substrate (Pyrex glass (“Pyrex” is a registered trademark of Corning, USA)) 6 by anodic bonding, and then silicon on the silicon substrate 1 is bonded. The oxide film 5 is removed, whereby a silicon mask 1M is produced on the glass substrate 6.
(FIG. 8E) Next, the glass substrate 6 is dry-etched through the silicon mask 1M to form a recess 7 in the glass substrate 6 corresponding to the shape of the opening of the silicon mask 1M. C ₄ F ₈ is used as the etching gas.
(FIG. 8F) Finally, the silicon mask 1M is removed from the glass substrate 6. A KOH (potassium hydroxide) aqueous solution is used to remove the silicon mask 1M.

JP 2003-225898 A JP 2002-359446 A JP-A-5-6874 T. Akashi, Y. Yoshimura, and S. Higashiyama `` Deep Reactive Ion Etching of Pyrex Glass Using a Bonded Silicon Wafer as an Etching Mask '' Proceedings of 18th IEEE Int.conf. On micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) 2005, 520- 523

  In the conventional method for etching a glass substrate shown in FIG. 8, a silicon substrate is used as a mask and a CF-based gas is used as an etching gas, so that the selectivity with respect to the mask at the time of etching can be increased. It is possible to realize digging.

  However, the glass substrate etching method shown in FIG. 8 has a problem that the shape processing step of the silicon substrate 1 constituting the mask is very complicated. Further, since the silicon substrate 1 that has been processed and thinned has poor handling properties, there is a concern that the operation of joining the silicon substrate 1 to the glass substrate 6 cannot be easily performed.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above-described problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a method of etching a glass substrate that can easily produce a silicon mask and can improve workability.

  In solving the above problems, the glass substrate etching method of the present invention includes a step of bonding a silicon substrate to the surface of the glass substrate, a step of forming a silicon mask made of the silicon substrate on the glass substrate, Etching the glass substrate through a silicon mask, and removing the silicon mask from the glass substrate.

  In the present invention, a silicon substrate serving as a mask is bonded to the surface of the glass substrate in advance, and the shape processing of the silicon mask is performed with the silicon substrate supported by the glass substrate. Accordingly, it is possible to easily manufacture a silicon mask on the glass substrate, and it is possible to eliminate the joining work after the mask is formed, thereby simplifying the processing process and improving workability.

In the present invention, the glass substrate is etched by a dry etching method. By using CF or CHF as the etching gas, the selectivity between the glass substrate and the silicon mask can be improved. In addition, the environmental load can be reduced compared to SF ₆ gas. It has been confirmed that by using a magnetic neutral line discharge (NLD) etching apparatus as the etching apparatus, the etching rate with the etching gas can be improved to, for example, about 1 μm / min.

  The silicon mask can be formed by etching the silicon substrate using a resist pattern formed on the silicon substrate as a mask. Since the silicon substrate is supported on the glass substrate, the production of the silicon mask is facilitated, and the number of processing steps can be reduced and the workability can be improved. The etching of the silicon substrate may be dry etching or wet etching.

As a glass substrate, not only quartz but also glass-based materials doped with rare earth ions such as Nd and Er, low expansion crystallized glass such as Li ₂ O—Al ₂ O ₃ —SiO ₂ , sodium silicate glass, borosilicate glass Alkali-free glass, white plate glass, and blue plate glass are applicable. In addition, anodic bonding, room temperature bonding, resin bonding, or the like can be applied to the bonding of the glass substrate and the silicon substrate. The anodic bonding is a bonding method in which a glass substrate and a silicon substrate are overlapped, and both substrates are tightly fixed by applying heat and voltage. Room temperature bonding is a technique for bonding substrates by activating the bonding interface by ion beam irradiation or the like to generate bonds. Further, the resin bonding includes, for example, a bonding technique using an adhesive resin material.

  As described above, according to the etching method of the glass substrate of the present invention, since the silicon mask is manufactured on the glass substrate, the silicon mask can be easily manufactured, and after the mask is formed. Since the joining work can be abolished, the machining process can be simplified and workability can be improved.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

  1A to 1E are process cross-sectional views of a main part for explaining a glass substrate etching method according to an embodiment of the present invention. The glass substrate etching method according to the present embodiment includes a step of bonding a silicon substrate to the surface of the glass substrate (FIG. 1A), a step of forming a silicon mask made of a silicon substrate on the glass substrate (FIGS. 1B and 1C), A step of etching the glass substrate through the silicon mask (FIG. 1D) and a step of removing the silicon mask from the glass substrate (FIG. 1E) are included. Details of each step will be described below.

(Silicon substrate bonding process)
As shown in FIG. 1A, first, the silicon substrate 11 is bonded to the surface of the glass substrate 12. The glass substrate 12 is made of borosilicate glass represented by Pyrex glass (“Pyrex” is a registered trademark of Corning, USA). The silicon substrate 11 is a single crystal substrate whose main surface is cut out in the (100) orientation plane. In this embodiment, the anodic bonding method is employed for bonding the silicon substrate 11 and the glass substrate 12, but other bonding methods such as room temperature bonding and resin bonding may be employed. Since silicon and glass have the same thermal expansion coefficient, they are a suitable combination particularly in a process involving heat treatment.

  The silicon substrate 11 is formed with a sufficient thickness (for example, 20 μm or more) to function as a mask. In addition to a method of preparing a silicon substrate having a predetermined thickness from the beginning and bonding it to the glass substrate 12, after bonding a silicon substrate thicker than the predetermined thickness to the glass substrate 12, the glass substrate 12 is used as a support material to reduce the thickness of the silicon substrate 11. It is also possible to apply a method of forming a silicon substrate with a predetermined thickness by performing a crystallization process. On the other hand, the thickness of the glass substrate 12 is not particularly limited, and is appropriately selected according to specifications and processes.

  After the silicon substrate 11 and the glass substrate 12 are bonded, resist layers 13 and 14 are formed on the front surface side and the back surface side of the bonded body. The resist layer 13 on the front side is for patterning the silicon substrate 11 into a predetermined shape. Further, the resist layer 14 on the back surface side has a substrate cooling gas built into the substrate stage of the etching apparatus that supports the glass substrate 12 when a through hole is formed in the glass substrate 12. This is to prevent leakage from the side. The resist layers 13 and 14 are made of a photosensitive organic resist material. In the case where a bottomed recess is formed on the glass substrate 12 instead of a through hole, the resist layer 14 need not be formed.

(Silicon mask manufacturing process)
Next, as shown in FIG. 1B, a step of exposing and developing the resist layer 13 formed on the surface of the silicon substrate 11 to form a resist mask 13M having a predetermined shape is performed. Thereafter, the silicon substrate 11 is etched using the resist mask 13M as an etching mask to form the silicon mask 11M shown in FIG. 1C.

The etching process of the silicon substrate 11 can be performed, for example, by dry etching using SF ₆ gas or HBr gas. In place of dry etching, for example, wet etching using TMAH or KOH solution may be performed. In addition, by using an etchant that has etching selectivity with respect to the glass substrate 12, the controllability of the etching process for the silicon substrate 11 can be enhanced.

(Glass substrate etching process)
Next, as shown in FIG. 1D, an etching process using the silicon mask 11M as an etching mask is performed to form a through hole 15 in the glass substrate 12. Etching of the glass substrate 12 is performed by dry etching. The etching gas is not particularly limited as long as it is an etching gas that is selective with respect to the silicon mask 11M. That is, before the through-hole is formed in the glass substrate 12, it is necessary to be selective enough that the silicon mask 11M is not etched away. Specifically, in this embodiment, C ₃ F ₈ gas is used as the etching gas, but other CF-based gases such as CF ₄ and c-C ₄ F ₈ are also applicable. A CHF gas such as CHF ₃ is also applicable. Further, a mixed gas of these CF gas, CHF gas and oxygen gas (O ₂ ) may be used.

  In addition to forming the through hole 15 in the glass substrate 12, when forming a bottomed recess (hole), the etching process may be stopped when the formation depth of the recess reaches a predetermined value. .

  Finally, the silicon mask 11M and the resist layer 14 are removed from the glass substrate 12 (FIG. 1E). The removal of the silicon mask 11M can be performed by removing the entire surface of the silicon by etching and using an etching solution such as TMAH or KOH. The resist layer 14 can be removed not only by ashing using oxygen plasma but also by dissolution using a predetermined solution.

  The manufactured glass substrate 12 is then subjected to conductorization treatment such as conductive plating deposition or conductor filling, and necessary wiring layers are formed on the front and back surfaces of the glass substrate 12. Thus, the circuit board is configured as a wiring board on which MEMS parts, IC parts, and the like are mounted.

  As described above, the through hole 15 is formed in a predetermined region of the glass substrate 12. According to the present embodiment, the silicon substrate 11 serving as a mask is bonded to the surface of the glass substrate 12 in advance, and the silicon mask 11M is manufactured with the silicon substrate 11 supported by the glass substrate 12. . As a result, the silicon mask 11M can be easily fabricated on the glass substrate 12, and the bonding process after the mask formation can be eliminated, so that the processing process can be simplified and the workability can be improved.

  In addition, since the silicon mask 11M is formed by etching the silicon substrate 11 using the resist pattern formed on the silicon substrate 11 as a mask, the silicon mask 11M can be easily manufactured and workability can be improved. Can do.

  Further, according to the present embodiment, when the through hole 15 is formed in the glass substrate 12, by using a CF-based or CHF-based etching gas as the etching gas, the selectivity with respect to the silicon mask 11M is excellent, and a predetermined value is used. The etching rate can be maintained.

FIG. 2 shows the relationship between the substrate bias power and the etching rate when a glass substrate (Pyrex glass (“Pyrex” is a registered trademark of Corning, USA)) is etched using C ₃ F ₈ gas as an etching gas. ing. As the etching apparatus, a magnetic neutral line discharge (NLD) etching apparatus shown in FIG. 3 was used. It can be seen that the etching rate is improved as the bias power is increased, and an etching rate of about 1 μm / min at maximum is obtained.

  FIG. 3 is a schematic configuration diagram of the NLD etching apparatus 20. Reference numeral 21 denotes a vacuum chamber, in which a plasma generating unit 21a and a substrate processing unit 21b are formed. A vacuum pump such as a turbo molecular pump (TMP) is connected to the vacuum chamber 21, and the inside of the vacuum chamber 21 is evacuated to a predetermined degree of vacuum.

Around the bell jar 22 constituting the plasma generator 21a, there are a high frequency coil 23 for plasma generation connected to the first high frequency power supply RF1, and three magnetic field coils 24A, 24B arranged on the outer peripheral side of the high frequency coil 23. , 24C are arranged. Current is supplied to the magnetic field coil 24A and the magnetic field coil 24C in the same direction, and current is supplied to the magnetic field coil 24B in the opposite direction to the other magnetic field coils 24A and 24C. As a result, in the plasma generator 21a, the magnetic neutral wire 25 is formed in a ring shape, and an induction electric field is applied along the magnetic neutral wire 25 by the high-frequency coil 23, whereby discharge plasma is formed.

  On the other hand, a stage 26 for supporting a substrate to be processed (a glass substrate in this example) is installed in the substrate processing unit 21b. The stage 26 is connected to the second high frequency power source RF2 as a bias power source via a blocking capacitor 27. A third high frequency power supply RF3 is connected to a top plate 28 formed on the upper part of the plasma generating unit 21a as a counter electrode of the stage 26 via a capacitor 29.

  The etching gas is introduced into the plasma generation unit 21 a through the gas introduction unit 30 installed in the vicinity of the top plate 28. As described above, for example, CF or CHF gas is used as the etching gas. The introduced etching gas is turned into plasma by the plasma generation unit 21a, and the glass substrate (not shown) on the stage 26 is etched by the generated ions and radicals. The high-frequency power supply RF2 accelerates ions to the stage 26 side by the substrate bias, and removes radical products on the glass substrate by sputtering to improve the etching property. The high frequency power supply RF3 suppresses charge-up due to positive ions in the etching region, and realizes deep processing of the glass substrate.

4A and 4B are SEM photographs when a recess (bottomed hole) is formed in a glass substrate using the NLD etching apparatus 20 having the above configuration. The opening of the silicon mask is circular with a diameter of 50 μm, and the thickness of the silicon mask is 30 μm. The glass substrate is borosilicate glass (Corning 7740 (trade name)), the hole depth is 80 μm, and the bottom diameter is 30 μm. The operating conditions of the etching apparatus at this time are as follows.
[Etching conditions]
・ Pressure: 1Pa
・ High frequency power supply (RF1) Frequency: 13.56 MHz
Power: 2300W
・ High frequency power supply (RF2) Frequency: 12.5MHz
Power: 500W
・ High frequency power supply (RF3) Frequency: 12.5MHz
Power: 500W
Magnetic field coil current 24A: 30.6A
24B: 52A
24C: 30.6A
Etching gas C ₄ F ₈ : 30 sccm
CHF ₃ : 20 sccm
O ₂ : 10 sccm

Note that the use of a CF-based gas as the etching gas makes it possible to significantly reduce the environmental burden compared to SF ₆ gas. FIG. 5 shows the global warming potential (GWP) of typical CF gas and SF ₆ gas as a relative value to carbon dioxide (CO ₂ ).

  The embodiment of the present invention has been described above. Of course, the present invention is not limited to this, and various modifications can be made based on the technical idea of the present invention.

  For example, in the above embodiment, an example in which a through hole or a bottomed hole is formed in the glass substrate 12 has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and a groove (a groove) or a slot-like recess is formed on the glass substrate by dry etching. The present invention can also be applied to the formation.

  Moreover, although the above embodiment demonstrated the example which uses an NLD etching apparatus for the dry etching process of a glass substrate, it is needless to say that not only this but the said NLD etching apparatus can be used for the etching process of a silicon mask. The etching apparatus is not limited to the NLD, and other discharge type plasma etching apparatuses such as ICP may be used.

It is process sectional drawing of the principal part for demonstrating the etching method of the glass substrate by one Embodiment of this invention. It is an experimental result showing the relation between the substrate bias output and the etching rate when using C ₃ F ₈ gas as the etching gas. It is a schematic block diagram of the etching apparatus used in embodiment of this invention. It is a SEM photograph of the glass substrate sample produced in the embodiment of the present invention. It is a figure which shows the global warming potential of typical etching gas. It is a schematic diagram explaining the processing method of the glass substrate using the conventional sandblasting method. It is principal part sectional drawing explaining the problem of the through-hole formation by a sandblasting method. It is process sectional drawing of the principal part for demonstrating the etching method of the conventional glass substrate.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 Silicon substrate 12 Glass substrate 13 Resist layer 15 Through-hole 20 NLD etching apparatus 21 Vacuum chamber 21a Plasma generation part 21b Substrate processing part 23 High frequency coil 24A, 24B, 24C Magnetic field coil 25 Magnetic neutral line 26 Stage 28 Top plate RF1, RF2 , RF3 high frequency power supply

Claims (8)

An etching method for forming a recess or a through hole on the surface of a glass substrate,
Bonding the silicon substrate to the surface of the glass substrate;
Forming a silicon mask made of the silicon substrate on the glass substrate;
Etching the glass substrate through the silicon mask;
And a step of removing the silicon mask from the glass substrate. The glass substrate etching method according to claim 1, wherein the glass substrate is etched by dry etching. The glass substrate etching method according to claim 2, wherein a CF-based gas or a CHF-based gas is used as an etching gas for the dry etching. The method for etching a glass substrate according to claim 2, wherein the etching of the glass substrate is performed using a magnetic neutral wire discharge etching apparatus. The glass substrate is any of quartz, rare earth-doped glass-based material, low expansion crystallized glass, sodium silicate glass, borosilicate glass, alkali-free glass, white plate glass, and blue plate glass. The manufacturing method of the glass substrate of 1. The method for producing a glass substrate according to claim 1, wherein the glass substrate and the silicon substrate are bonded by anodic bonding, room temperature bonding, or resin bonding. The method for etching a glass substrate according to claim 1, wherein the silicon mask is formed by etching the silicon substrate using a resist pattern formed on the silicon substrate as a mask. The method for manufacturing a glass substrate according to claim 7, wherein the silicon mask is formed by dry etching or wet etching.

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