Speaker: Dr. Martin McBriarty, Materials Scientist at EMD Electronics

In-Person Meeting. Register: Here

Thermal Atomic Layer Etch for Logic and Memory Downscaling

As downscaling approaches physical limits, semiconductor devices are evolving into increasingly complex 3D nano-architectures. Fabricating these unprecedented devices in high-volume manufacturing requires precise and selective material deposition & etch methods. Atomic layer etch (ALE) helps to sculpt these structures by selectively removing materials with angstrom-scale control. By exploiting chemical differences between materials, ALE processes are designed to etch certain exposed materials while minimizing damage to others. ALE can enable scaling boosters such as fully self-aligned via (FSAV), a critical method for logic back end of line (BEOL) downscaling. Vapor-phase thermal ALE can also provide controlled, selective etch in features with high aspect ratio, low critical dimension, or horizontal openings, overcoming the limitations of wet and plasma etches in emerging 3D structures. This seminar will focus on ALE of metals and metal oxides for logic and DRAM, including process fundamentals, selectivity mechanisms, and thermal ALE processes developed at EMD Electronics.

Read more: Atomic Layer Etching Carves the Path to More Efficient Computing

About the Author:

Martin McBriarty, Ph.D., leads atomic layer etch development at EMD Electronics in San Jose, California. He earned his B.S. in Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Florida in 2008 and his Ph.D. in the same field at Northwestern University in 2014. He studied at the Fritz Haber Institute as a Fulbright scholar and completed postdoctoral work at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory before joining Intermolecular (a business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany) in 2018.