Ion Beam Etching (IBE) and Ion Beam deposition (IBD) tool.
About
The equipment is capable of ion beam etching and ion beam deposition of materials while maintaining the vacuum level between the two processes.
Description
The IBE-IBD tool allow to etch wide range of thin-film materials, including magnetic stacks and complex stacks (such as Ta, Ru, MgO, Pt, FeNi, CoFeB) as well as in situ deposition of encapsulation materials (such as SiO2 and SiN). To achieve this, the equipment is configured with a single chamber and two ion beam source (one for etching and one for deposition), plus a load lock.
In terms of etching, the equipment can physically etch all types of material, using the following modes:
– Ion beam etching (IBE).
– Reactive ion beam etching (RIBE).
With regard to the deposition component, the equipment can deposit thin films using the following deposition techniques:
– Ion beam deposition (IBD).
– Reactive Ion Beam Deposition (RIBD).
The tool will be available in middle 2025.
Technical specifications:
The tool is intented for research and development use, and accepts substrates with diameters of 200mm, 100mm and 50mm, as well as small coupons. The equipment is equipped with single substrate load lock.
The system allow:
– Substrate rotation up to 20 rpm
– Substrate tilt between 0° … 90°
– Four targets: SiO2 ans SiN deposition available.
– Creation of etching and deposition recipe
– In situ end point detection
Case study:
The tool enables to etch magnetic tunnel junction composed of pillars with complex multilayer using ion beam etching technique. After the etching in situ encapsulation with SiN protective layer is performed to protect etched thin films sensible to oxidation. The final encapsulation layer is very conformal.
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