Characteristics of pulsed internal inductively coupled plasma for next generation display processing

RF pulsed plasma characteristics of inductively coupled plasma (ICP) sources operated with internal linear type antennas for the next generation display processing were investigated. By applying the rf pulse mode in the ICP source, with decreasing the rf pulse duty percentage, the average electron temperature was decreased and the plasma non-uniformity was improved with decreasing the rf pulse duty percentage. In the case of plasma uniformity, for the same time average rf power of 3 kW to the ICP source, the plasma non-uniformity was improved from 8.4% at 100% of rf duty percentage to 6.4% at 60% of rf duty percentage due to the increased diffusion of the plasma during the pulse-off time. When SiO₂ was etched using CF₄, the etch rate uniformity was also improved due to the improvement of plasma uniformity.