Overview

iDEA stands for “integrated Dual-station Etch and Asher”. It represents a new concept developed by AMEC that integrates one or two dual-station D-RIE or AD-RIE process modules with a DsA (“Downstream Asher”) chamber on the same platform. AMEC’s DsA design is a dual-station chamber that utilizes a top-mounted remote plasma source (“RPS”) to create reactive species that are then uniformly delivered to the wafer surface for photo-resist removal. This approach not only effectively removes the photo-resist material, but also offers less direct plasma exposure to the wafer. This is important for customers running devices that are highly sensitive to surface charge build-up and potentially risk of plasma-induced damage (PID). Avoiding PID can involve exhaustive and expensive efforts to modify integration schemes or add dedicated machines for steps such as photo-resist removal. The fully integrated Primo iDEA® system offers a cost-effective solution to perform etch processing and dedicated photo-resist removal within the same platform.