Epitaxial growth and selective etching techniques

Abstract

In this chapter a wafer-level thinning technique is presented, where, similar to what is discussed in Chapter 8, epitaxial growth of silicon (Si) determines the final chip thickness. A combination of backside grinding and selective wet chemical etching is used for thinning down the initial substrate. Since wafer bonding and grinding were thoroughly addressed in Chapters 4 and 5, this subsection deals only with the other key processing steps, namely the wet chemical etching of Si and the epitaxial growth of highly boron-doped Si required to trigger the etch selectivity. Finally, process parameters and significant results based on this technique are summarised. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.