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Visit Us at IMS 2008
June 15 - 20, 2008
Visit Booth # 932
1000 East Industrial Park Drive
Manchester, NH 03109
info@ionbeammilling.com
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In simple terms ion beam milling can be viewed as an atomic sand
blaster.
The grains of sand are actually
submicron ion particles accelerated to bombard the surface of the
work mounted on a rotating table inside a vacuum chamber. The work
is typically a wafer, substrate or element that requires material
removal by atomic sandblasting or dry etching.
A selectively
applied protectant, photo sensitive resist, is applied to the work
element prior to introduction into the ion miller. The resist protects
the underlying material during the etching process which may be
up to eight hours or longer, depending upon the amount to be removed
and the etch rate of the materials. Everything that is exposed
to the collimated ion beam (may be 15" in
diameter in some equipment) etches during the process cycle,
even the resist.
In most micromachining applications the desired
material to be removed etches at a rate 3 to 10 times faster than
the resist protectant thus preserving the material and features
underneath the resist.
Features such as the Constitution and the Lord's
Prayer on the head of a pin may be realized using photolithography
(select application of photoresist) and ion beam milling.
Argon ions within a plasma formed by an electrical
discharge are accelerated by a pair of optically aligned grids. The highly
collimated beam is focused on a tilted workplate that rotates during
the milling operation. A neutralization filament prevents the buildup
of positive charge on the workplate.
| Material |
Etch Rate (A°/min) |
| Gold (Au) |
1000 |
| Copper (Cu) |
700 |
| Az-1350 (resist) |
200 |
| Nichrome (NiCr) |
170 |
| Alumina (Al2O3) |
90 |
The challenge that Ion Beam Milling has addressed and solved
is that of thicker metallizations encountered in the thin and thick
film hybrid industry where metal thickness up to 10 microns (400uin)
are required for low DCR or low frequency skin depth concerns.
Typical
values of etch rates are:
| Production Method: |
Dry Milling (4 to 5 um metallization) |
| Post-Process Yields: |
Exceeding 90 percent |
| Circuit-to-Circuit Repeatability: |
100 percent |
| Milling Performance: |
Anisotropic with no undercutting or pattern change |
| Available Feature Size: |
0.2 um (0.000008 in.) |
| Other Advantages: |
Reduced inspection, rework, and final test time
due to excellent repeatability. |
Request a Periodic Chart
of Etch Rates
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