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Enhancement of XeF2-assisted gallium ion beam etching of silicon layer and

endpoint detection from backside in circuit editing

Article  in  Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology B: Nanotechnology and Microelectronics · November 2015
DOI: 10.1116/1.4928744

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 Enhancement of XeF2-assisted gallium ion beam etching of silicon layer and endpoint
detection from backside in circuit editing
Deying Xia, John Notte, Lewis Stern, and Bernhard Goetze

Citation: Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B 33, 06F501 (2015); doi: 10.1116/1.4928744
View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1116/1.4928744
View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/avs/journal/jvstb/33/6?ver=pdfcov
Published by the AVS: Science & Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processing

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 Enhancement of XeF2-assisted gallium ion beam etching of silicon layer
and endpoint detection from backside in circuit editing
Deying Xia,a) John Notte, Lewis Stern, and Bernhard Goetze
Ion Microscopy Innovation Center, Carl Zeiss Microscopy LLC, One Corporation Way, Peabody,
Massachusetts 01960
(Received 23 June 2015; accepted 7 August 2015; published 20 August 2015)
Within the semiconductor industry, backside circuit editing is the process of modifying individual
nanometer-scale devices after they have been fabricated by conventional mass production techni-
ques. The technique includes the removal of bulk silicon, to reach the devices, followed by the
removal of small and precisely defined volumes of silicon and other materials. It also includes the
ability to deposit precise patterns of conductors or insulators to modify the devices in question.
Essential to the circuit edit processes are the focused ion beam (FIB) instruments, usually providing
a gallium ion beam, to sputter away the volumes which need to be removed. When used in conjunc-
tion with specific “precursor” gases, the FIB instrument can deposit metals and insulators in arbi-
trary patterns to achieve the desired circuit repair or modification. Other gases, such as xenon
difluoride (XeF2), can work in conjunction with the FIB to improve the effectiveness and the rate
of material removal. Our experimental investigation found that the removal rate of backside silicon
by a gallium FIB could be enhanced by 100 times when used in conjunction with the XeF2 gas. The
XeF2 also reduced the redeposition of the removed silicon material, making the removal more
effective. And importantly, the production of secondary electrons was found to offer a viable end-
C 2015 American Vacuum Society.
point signal to indicate the transition to a new material. V
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1116/1.4928744]

I. INTRODUCTION the surface. A common example of IBID includes a nozzle

Focused ion beams (FIBs) are increasingly employed for
the fabrication of micro- and nanoscale structures in a vari-
ety of different applications.1 Charged particle beams offer
several advantages compared to conventional light optics
when it comes to imaging and fabrication at the nanometer
scale. The very small focused probe size is a consequence of
the reduced diffraction effects owing to the small deBroglie
wavelength of these particles. The ion beams can also inter-
act with the sample in a manner which is uniquely different
from light and different even from the electron beam in the
conventional scanning electron microscope (SEM). The inci-
dent ion, with its considerable mass, can exchange momen-
tum effectively with the atoms comprising the sample, and
cause sputtering at the nanometer scale. Each incident ion
can also generate a number of secondary electrons (SE),
which provide an opportunity for high contrast imaging,
since the abundance of SE’s is an indication of the local
composition and topography, as well as electrical and crys-
tallographic properties. The SEs can hence be used to pro-
vide an “endpoint signal” to indicate when one material has
been sputtered through to reveal a different subsurface
material.
When used in conjunction with various precursor gases,
the ion beam can be used to directly write a pattern of elec-
trically insulating or conductive materials by the process of
ion beam induced deposition (IBID).1 In the simplest terms,
the mechanism involves the incident ion breaking apart the
precursor gas molecule and causing it to be immobilized at
a)
Electronic mail: deying.xia@zeiss.com
which delivers the precursor gas W(CO)6 to the sample
region, and the ion beam converts this to condensed tungsten
wherever the beam strikes it. Alternatively, some gases work
in conjunction with the ion beam to cause material to be
removed at a rate that is well beyond the material removal
rate from direct sputtering. The process is called gas assisted
etching (GAE).1 A common example includes the use of xe-
non difluoride, XeF2, to enhance the sputtering rate of sili-
con. In this case, the ion beam dissociates the molecule,
leaving the reactive fluorine to combine with silicon or insu-
lating materials and produce volatile byproducts. The effect
is to augment the rate of material removal beyond what sput-
tering alone can achieve. Additional benefits are the material
selectivity and a reduced rate of material redeposition.
For the above reasons, it is easy to understand that the
FIB has been productively employed in the semiconductor
industry where modification and fabrication at the nanometer
scale is critical. Specific FIB applications include the repair
of lithographic masks, device failure analysis, in-line process
inspection, and circuit editing. Most commonly, the industry
standard FIB instrument is based upon the gallium liquid
metal ion source (LMIS). It is a mature technology, with a
relatively long lifetime with high probe currents and stable
emission. The mass of the gallium atom provides a reason-
ably high sputter rate, although the residually implanted gal-
lium is not desired in many applications—for example,
when electrical insulation is desired.
An alternative ion source for the FIB technology is the
gas field ion source (GFIS). This technology was first com-
mercialized in 2005 and relies upon the ionization of noble
gases, such as helium or neon, from an individual atom-

06F501-1 J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 33(6), Nov/Dec 2015 2166-2746/2015/33(6)/06F501/7/$30.00 C 2015 American Vacuum Society
V 06F501-1

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 06F501-2 Xia et al.: Enhancement of XeF2-assisted gallium ion beam etching
sized region on the emitter.2 Instruments based upon the
GFIS can provide a much smaller focused probe size, albeit
with lower available probe currents. One advantage of the
lighter species ion beams is the reduced damage at the sam-
ple surface, better imaging capabilities, lack of Ga residue,
and deeper implantation depth.
The newly commercialized Orion NanoFab instrument
provides a combination of three ion beams (gallium LMIS,
and neon and helium with GFIS) on a single platform, allow-
ing for a wide range of traditional and new applications. The
gallium ion beam provides the traditional FIB processing for
micron scale milling and sample preparation. The helium ion
beam is well suited for obtaining high resolution images of
challenging materials such as insulators and biological sam-
ples.3,4 The helium ion beam can be used for direct pattern-
ing of graphene,5–7 plasmonic devices,8,9 and molecular
nanopores.10 With its intermediate mass, the neon ion beam
provides a unique combination of an approximate nanometer
probe size, a reasonable sputter yield,11 and no metallic resi-
due, and has a unique accurate nanofabrication capacity with
reasonable processing rate.12 With the integration of a gas
injection system (GIS), the standard etching and deposition
processes can be adapted with a variety of ion species and a
variety of precursor gases to express processing and obtain
high quality of deposited insulator and metal.13 With these
very broad and flexible capabilities, this new instrument is
under evaluation for the demanding application of semicon-
ductor circuit edit.
For the specific application of backside circuit editing,
the thickness of silicon corresponding to the wafer thickness
(e.g., 600 lm or more) needs to be fully removed to reveal
the circuits in question. Even with maximum available ion
beam currents, and GAE, the ion beam is not well suited for
the removal of such bulk volumes.14 Rather, a mechanical or
thermochemical process removes the majority of the silicon,
leaving approximately 10 lm of silicon to be removed using
ion beam techniques. After the pre-etched step, it is neces-
sary to evaluate the adequate processing to reach the target
functional layer. Both of speed of etching down of 10 lm of
Si layer and sensitivity of reaching target layer (endpoint
detection) should be considered in such backside circuiting
etching. The XeF2-assistd Ga beam etching is suitable for
such requirements.
In this paper, we focus our attention on initial backside
access to the active circuit region. Even though there are
many publications regarding circuit edit with the gallium ion
beam and XeF2,1,15 these works always are either for front-
side circuit editing, or very shallow silicon layers (less than
1 lm). In addition, the results are always assessed with
images derived from an SEM. In this paper, we investigate
the removal of tens of microns of residual bulk silicon with
the gallium ion beam and XeF2 for the backside circuit edit
application in a modern instrument, the ORION NanoFab.
We measure the ion dosage needed to reach the first metal
layer with and without the delivery of the XeF2. Further, we
provide a detailed examination of the endpoint signal of the
metal layer under these conditions.
J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B, Vol. 33, No. 6, Nov/Dec 2015
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06F501-2
II. EXPERIMENT
All of the experimental processes were executed within
the multiple ion beam microscopes Orion NanoFab (Carl
Zeiss Microscopy, Peabody, MA, USA). The gallium ion
beam option provided the operations of milling and imaging.
The helium ion beam provided imaging at the same location
where the gallium beam impinges upon the sample. The gal-
lium beam is inclined by an angle of 54 relative to the verti-
cal helium beam. The operational beam conditions such as
the probe current and the area dosages will be described in
Results and Discussion sections. The ion beam patterning,
and the assessment of the endpoint signal, was provided by
the Nano Patterning and Visualization Engine (NPVE) hard-
ware and software (Fibics, Ottawa, Canada). The general
imaging with the helium and gallium beams was conducted
using the built-in scan and acquisition hardware native to the
NanoFab.
The sample was mounted to a five axis stage with the
sample height adjusted so that the gallium and helium beams
are coincident at a single point on the sample. By design, the
stage’s tilt axis passes through this same point and is perpen-
dicular to both of the incident beams. The stage is capable of
tilting a flat sample so that it is orthogonal to either the he-
lium or gallium beams. The base pressure in the sample
chamber was 2  10 7 Torr when precursor gases were not
in use.
The gas injection system used was the GISII model from
Omniprobe of Oxford Instruments. The selected precursor
gas was XeF2 provided in the original electronic cartridge
assembly crucible design available at the start of 2014. The
target temperature of the gas manifold was set to 30  C using
the control software. The GIS nozzle was positioned to
within a distance of 50–100 lm of the beam-coincident
point. The nozzle, consisting of a hypodermic tubing, is also
aimed at the beam coincidence location and is located so as
not to interfere with the stage tilt motions. The GIS was
operated with a specified target pressure for the chamber
gauge, typically 8  10 6 Torr. This target pressure was gen-
erally achieved to within 10% except for initial turn-on and
settling effects. However, given the remote location of the
chamber gauge and the chamber’s vacuum pumping speed,
we expect the local pressure at the sample might have been
100 times or more than the gauge-indicated value. We found
that the gas delivery from the GIS could not be abruptly shut
off. So to minimize the undesired, residual gas delivery
effects after our processing was completed, we would extract
the nozzle several millimeters using the built in motion capa-
bilities of the GIS. While this did not terminate the flow, it
diminished the local gas pressure due to the increased dis-
tance from nozzle to sample. In XeF2 delivery and assisted-
etching processes, some of the reaction products will include
HF and SiF4, which are can be hazardous to both equipment
and personnel. Fortunately, the quantity produced will be
relatively small, <0.05 std cm3/min. The roughing pump
was chosen to be tolerant of these chemicals, and the exhaust
from the pump is routed directly to the facility’s chemical
hood or exhaust.
 06F501-3 Xia et al.: Enhancement of XeF2-assisted gallium ion beam etching 06F501-3

The tested chip was mounted on an aluminum stub with
metalized tape to make good electrical contact to the solder
bumps. The chip was oriented on the stage with the silicon
surface upwards (facing the beams) in the standard
“backside” configuration. Consistent with the backside pre-
processing, about 600 lm depth of the silicon had been
removed in a 500  500 lm square region using the laser
assisted chemical etching (LACE) processing. The remain-
ing layer of silicon was 10 lm thick at the bottom of a pit.
For most of the following gallium beam operations, the stage
was tilted so that the gallium beam would strike the chip at
normal incidence.
Three types of experiments were conducted in this inves-
tigation. First, we delivered the XeF2 gas on the silicon sur-
face with relatively high pressure and long duration without
the gallium ion beam to investigate the XeF2 etching effect
on the silicon. Second, we used only the gallium ion beam to
mill patterns into the silicon without any XeF2 present.
Finally, we used XeF2 in conjunction with the gallium ion
beam to investigate the enhancement effect of XeF2. We
also recorded the SE signal using the NPVE to evaluate the
prospects of endpointing using this signal. For all of these
tests, we were able to visually inspect the results by imaging
with either the helium beam or the gallium beam, based
upon the detected SE signal. The ion beam was rastered in a
square pattern with an edge length that was varied from 6 to
20 lm, with a 5 nm pixel spacing, a dwell time of 1 ls, and a
refresh time of 10 ls.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
After the test chip was loaded into the Orion NanoFab
chamber, the gallium beam was used to acquire an image of
the region, which was previously exposed by LACE process-
ing. Figure 1(a) shows the 500  500  600 lm deep pit
with a 54 tilt perspective. The image is interpreted accu-
rately as a tapered hole rather than a pyramid, by considering
of the direction of the raster scan. A large field of view
image acquired with a top-down perspective shows the pit to
be of square profile (not shown). A higher magnification
image with a top-down perspective shows the bottom surface
of the pit [Fig. 1(b)]. This image reveals the linear grooves
that are artifacts of the LACE processing.
Figure 1(c) was acquired from the in-chamber camera
and reveals the geometry of the GFIS column, and the gal-
lium column relative to the five axis stage. The tilt axis of
the stage is along the line of sight, and is centered, with
respect to the axis of the camera. The GIS nozzle is partly

FIG. 1. Gallium beam images and chamber photo: (a) tilted image of prepared LACE processed pit; (b) top-view image of bottom surface in the pre-etched pit;
(c) image from the chamber camera showing the GFIS column, the gallium column, the GIS nozzle, and the tilted stage.

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 06F501-4 Xia et al.: Enhancement of XeF2-assisted gallium ion beam etching
obscured by the gallium column, but is directed to the point
where the two ion beams are coincident on the sample. The
SE detector screen is partly visible behind the GIS nozzle.
To acquire a normal incidence image with the gallium beam
[e.g., Fig. 1(b)] the stage would be tilted to 54 , as shown in
Fig. 1(c). Note that slower direction of the gallium beam’s
raster scanning progresses from lower right to upper left
according the camera perspective of Fig. 1(c). In these
experiments, we also used the helium beam to characterize
the structural surface after etching with the stage at 0 (not
shown) to provide a normal incidence perspective.
A. Etching with only XeF2
In the first experiment, we tested the etching of XeF2 gas
on the silicon surface without the gallium ion beam. For this
test, we used a different silicon sample without the LACE
processed pit. We used the GIS to deliver the XeF2 gas onto
the silicon surface for 90 min with the chamber gauge report-
ing a steady pressure of 7  10 6 Torr. The resulting silicon
surface is shown in Fig. 2. The affected area spans several
hundred microns and is determined by the angular diver-
gence from the nozzle and its distance to the silicon, rather
than any patterning ion beam. The upper right region of
Fig. 2(a) shows the gradual diminishing of the heavily pitted
region. The center of the affected region is covered with
micropits resulting from the relatively slow chemical proc-
essing from the XeF2 gas exposure. The directional asymme-
try [Fig. 2(b)] of the micropits is caused by the direction of
XeF2 gas delivery as it impinges upon the sample surface.
The deep micropit rough surface in Fig. 2(b) is obvious com-
pared to the images in upper right corner of Fig. 2(a) as well
as Fig. 1(b) due to such long duration of exposure to XeF2
gas. Upon completion of this experiment, and unloading the
sample, we could observe with the unaided eye, the affected
area as a white spot on the silicon surface.
B. Milling with only gallium
In the second experiments, we tested the gallium ion
beam’s sputtering of the silicon surface without XeF2 injec-
tion. The stage was tilted to 54 to achieve normal incidence
FIG. 2. Helium ion images of XeF2 etching on the silicon surface with a duration of 90 min: (a) large area image and (b) magnified image.
J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B, Vol. 33, No. 6, Nov/Dec 2015
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06F501-4
for the gallium beam. The chosen target region was the re-
sidual silicon at the bottom of the LACE processed pits. In
the first set of tests, we milled an array of square patterns
(10  10 lm) defined by NPVE software with different gal-
lium ion beam currents and doses. Figure 3(a) shows one
such region milled over 50 min with a 100 pA beam and a
dose of 3 nC/lm2 and subsequently imaged briefly by the
gallium beam. Figure 3(b) shows a series of milled pits as
imaged with the helium beam after the sample was rotated.
The pit labeled “p1” was the first milled with the 3 nC/lm2
dose. To speed up the process, we increased the beam cur-
rent to 700 pA and patterned another pit “p2” with a dosage
of 6 nC/lm2 for just 14 min. A subsequent image with the
gallium beam revealed no apparent metal pattern at the bot-
tom of the pit. For pit “p3” a gallium beam current of
7000 pA was used to apply a dose of 30 nC/lm2 over 7 min,
yet this was still not deep enough to reach the patterned
metal. For pit “p4,” we applied 50 nC/lm2 with the same ion
beam current of 7000 pA. For this milling process however,
there was a significant increase of the detected SE signal at a
time corresponding to a dosage of about 40 nC/lm2 after a
gradual decrease of SE signal for the dosage less than 40 nC/
lm2. From NPVE software, it is easy to observe this end-
point detection to reach some different materials layer from
endpoint curves. And in this case, our subsequent brief imag-
ing did in fact reveal the metal structures. Using same ion
beam current, 7000 pA, we repeated the milling processing
for pits “p5” and “p6” using dosages of 43 and 46 nC/lm2,
respectively. Consistently, we observed the SE signal indi-
cating transitions at the 40 nC/lm2 dosage level—indicating
the start of the metal layer.
Figure 3(c) shows the top-down view of “p6” as imaged
with the gentler helium ion beam. At this site, it is evident
that the milling proceeded in two steps, first with a dose of
40 nC/lm2 over a 10 lm square, and then a follow-on dose
of 6 nC/lm2 over a 6 lm square. The metal features at the
bottom are not uniform because they were damaged from the
excess gallium dose (above 40 nC/lm2). At these high beam
currents, the transition from just exposing the metal to
removing some of the metal requires a relatively short time.
This image also suggests a tapering of the side walls of the
 06F501-5 Xia et al.: Enhancement of XeF2-assisted gallium ion beam etching
FIG. 3. Top and tilted images for single step (a)–(d) and multiple-step
(e)–(h) milling on Si surface using gallium ion beam: (a) top-view Ga image
of etched pattern 10  10 lm with dose of 3 nC/lm2; (b) tilted helium ion
image of an array of etched patterns with different doses; (c) top helium ion
image of etched pattern with dose of 46 nC/lm2; (d) tilted helium ion image
of etched pattern with dose of 46 nC/lm2; (e) top-view gallium image
(inseted image showing enlarged image of top part of etched pit bottom); (f)
tilted helium ion image; (g) enlarged top view of helium ion image; and (h)
enlarged tiled view of helium ion image.
pit. Figure 3(d) shows a different perspective (also with the
helium beam) and confirms that the sidewalls are indeed
sloped. We attribute this effect to the progressive redeposi-
tion of the sputtered silicon onto the two adjacent and one
opposite sidewalls.
To avoid these two issues, we adopted a multistep strat-
egy to mill down to the metal layer with the gallium beam.
We milled with progressively smaller mill boxes to reduce
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06F501-5
the side wall taper effect from the silicon redeposition. And
we progressively used smaller beam currents to slow the
milling rate to allow for more time to recognize the endpoint
signal end terminate the milling. The sequence of the
multiple-step approach is detailed in Table I. At the first
three steps, high ion beam currents (7 nA and 700 pA) were
used to rapidly mill a large patterns and remove the bulk of
the silicon. After that, a moderate gallium beam current of
100 pA was used to slow the milling processing in order to
obtain controllable endpoint detection and uniform milling
profile. After a total dose of 41 nC/lm2, the metal layer was
still not exposed in the 8  8 lm square pattern. We applied
another dose of 4 nC/lm2 in an 8  2 lm rectangular shape
and observed the metal layer starting to be exposed via the
endpoint detection at total dose 44 nC/lm2, and a total mill-
ing time of 166 min. Figure 3(e) shows the end result of this
multistep process, and the smaller inset image shows that the
metal features are now undamaged. Without the multistep
process, we found it is easy to damage the metal layer at
high gallium dose and high beam current as shown in
Fig. 3(c). Figure 3(f) demonstrates that the sidewalls are
much more vertical when using the multistep strategy, com-
pared to the single step milling [Fig. 3(d)]. Finally, another
5  4 lm rectangular pattern was milled in the remaining sil-
icon at the bottom of the put with a dose of 5 nC/lm2 to
achieve a total dose 46 nC/lm2. Two final images [Figs. 3(g)
and 3(h)] were acquired using the helium beam with a top-
down, and tilted perspective.
The benefits of using such a multistep strategy can be
understood in the following analysis. Using NPVE software,
we could calculate that the time to mill a 10  10 lm box to
the metal layer with a dose of 44 nC/lm2 is about 12 h if a
100 pA gallium beam is used. Our studies suggested that
higher currents would risk damage to the metal while the
endpoint signal is still being acquired and analyzed. We con-
clude that such a long milling operation is not practical for a
backside circuit edit using the gallium beam.
C. Gas assisted etching with gallium and XeF2
The final set of experiments was performed to investigate
enhanced material removal rate when XeF2 is used in con-
junction with the gallium ion beam for removal of backside
silicon. In this process, we adopted the same NPVE milling
conditions as in the previous pit-milling experiments. We
optimized the GIS for temperature, nozzle position, and
chamber pressure to give the best GAE performance. With
TABLE I. Experimental conditions for multiple-step gallium ion milling of Si
with NPVE defined patterning.
Pattern size (lm) Beam current (pA) Dose (nC/lm2)
20  20 7020 26
12  12 700 6
10  10 700 3
99 100 4
88 100 2
82 100 4
 06F501-6 Xia et al.: Enhancement of XeF2-assisted gallium ion beam etching
XeF2 assisting, the removal rate of silicon is higher than the
removal rate of conducting materials. This “selectivity”
allows greater latitude in the process since the endpointing
signal is accompanied by a slower milling rate.
In Fig. 4(a), we defined 10  10 lm square pattern using
NPVE and a prescribed dose of 0.55 nC/lm2. From the gen-
erated SE signal [Fig. 4(b)], we determined that the dose
required to start to expose the metal layer was just 0.40 nC/
lm2. The arrow in Fig. 4(b) indicates the endpoint detection
criteria we came to recognize for metal exposure in this
tested chip. In the case of GAE, a total of only 7 min was
required with a continuous 100 pA ion beam current to reach
the metal layer. If we compared dose (without XeF2) to dose
(with XeF2), the enhancement factor is around 100. Within
the existing literature on this subject, there are large varia-
tions of enhancement factor reported by different authors.
We assert that these variations are caused by the fact that the
efficiency of GAE processing depends strongly on experi-
mental conditions, such as dwell time, refresh time, current
density, gas pressure, and nozzle position.1 Even so, our
enhancement factor is much higher than a typically reported
enhancement factor of around 10.15 We attribute this to our
GIS optimization process since the milling and gallium con-
ditions were not changed. The silicon surface surrounding
the milled pit in Fig. 4(a) also exhibits the similar micro-
structures seen earlier when the XeF2 was flowing in the
FIG. 4. (Color online) Gallium ion images of XeF2-assisted etching of Si surfaces for 10  10 lm patterns using beam current 100 pA: (a) dose of 0.55 nC/lm2;
(b) end point curve for (a) (blue arrow indicating the dose for the start to expose the metal layer); (c) dose of 0.4 nC/lm2; and (d) dose of 1.2 nC/lm2.
J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B, Vol. 33, No. 6, Nov/Dec 2015
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06F501-6
absence of the gallium beam; however, it showed much less
shallow micropit compared to that shown in Fig. 2(b) due to
the much less exposure time of XeF2 gas in this ion beam
assisted processing. It was also observed that the milled box
with XeF2 is slightly larger than the box produced with only
gallium.
Figure 4(c) shows a pit created with a gallium dose of
0.40 nC/lm2 in conjunction with XeF2. We can see the par-
tial exposure of the metal layer at the lower left corner of the
floor of the pit. The asymmetry is attributed to the relative
positions of the stage and nozzle, and the direction of gas
flow. It was noted earlier in Sec. II that the local gas pressure
under the nozzle is likely to be much higher than the pres-
sure indicated on the chamber gauge. It is likely that the gas
concentration effects are even higher in the geometry of the
LACE processed pit (500  500  600 lm deep) and the
smaller 10  10 lm pit within it. Figure 4(d) shows an
example of excessive dose, and the resulting over-etching
artifacts that result. The dose for this testing is 1.2 nC/lm2
or about triple the needed dose. The metal features are much
more visible with such an excessively high dose. We attrib-
ute this to the loss of the surrounding insulating material and
the topographic relief that results. This also confirms the ma-
terial selectivity effect in which the silicon and insulating
materials are subjected to a greater GAE rate than the metal
layers. Another advantage of XeF2-assisted gallium ion
 06F501-7 Xia et al.: Enhancement of XeF2-assisted gallium ion beam etching
FIG. 5. Helium ion images of XeF2-assisted etching of the silicon surfaces with high dosage. (a) Double windows (each 6  6 lm) with dose of 0.6 nC/lm2;
(b) exposed metal layers with dose of 1.2 nC/lm2 inside 50  50 lm patterns.
beam etching processing is the decrease of Ga impurities
imbedded in the materials due to much less usage of Ga ion
beam compared to only Ga ion beam etching processing.
We also investigated a double pattern consisting of two
smaller square pits (6  6 lm), as shown in Fig. 5(a). The
applied dose is 0.6 nC/lm2, and the right pit was etched first
in this test. With such a high dose, the metal connections are
easily exposed for further circuit edit processes. In another
experiment, we used a much higher dose of 1.2 nC/lm2 with
a 200 pA gallium beam current in a 50  50 lm square pit.
Then, we can see the multiple levels of metal structures at the
bottom of pit, as shown in Fig. 5(b), further demonstrating
the selectivity of this GAE processing. It should be noted that
the selectivity is not perfect, since the metal layer must be
sputtered at a rate which is at least as fast as the unaccompa-
nied gallium ion beam. Indeed, there is evidence in Fig. 5(b)
that the upper metal lines were damaged from the higher
beam currents. A more moderate beam current (<100 pA)
would minimize damage while exposing multiple metal layers
for the circuit edit applications.
For more precise milling, or a slower milling rate, it should
be noted that the NanoFab instrument also offers an optional
neon focused ion beam. This provides a sputter yield (atoms
per ion) that is about half the value for gallium ions. The neon
beam, however, is limited to currents which are considerably
lower than the currents used with the gallium beam in this pa-
per. The neon beam is best suited for slower, precision cutting
due to its smaller probe size (<2 nm) and the lower sputter
rates. The research of enhancement of XeF2-assisted neon
etching for Si and SiO2 layer is ongoing. It is also recognized
that neon leaves no residual metal that can otherwise impact
the performance of the finally edited circuit.
IV. CONCLUSION
We investigated the enhanced etching effect from XeF2 in
conjunction with gallium ion beam milling for the application
of backside circuit editing through silicon. When using only
the gallium beam (no XeF2), a multiple-step method removed
the silicon layer (10 lm) down to the metal with consistency,
JVST B - Nanotechnology and Microelectronics: Materials, Processing, Measurement, and Phenomena
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06F501-7
but required a long processing time. With the assistance of the
XeF2 gas, the removal of the thick Si from backside was fast
and controllable. The enhancement factor is as high as 100.
The measured SE signal provided a distinct and reliable end-
point signal as the metal layer was reached. This enhanced
processing rate and easy endpoint detection will play important
role in backside circuit editing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the Intelligence Advanced
Research Projects Activity (IARPA) via Air Force Research
Laboratory (AFRL) Contract No. FA8650-11-C-7100. The
U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute
reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any
copyright annotation thereon. The views and conclusions
contained herein are those of the authors and should not be
interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or
endorsements, either expressed or implied, of IARPA,
AFRL, or the U.S. Government.
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