Three-Dimensional Simulations of the Anisotropic Etching Profile Evolution for Producing Nanoscale Devices

Refined control of etched profiles is one of the most important tasks of micro (nano) electro mechanical systems manufacturing process. In spite of its wide use, the simulation of etching for micro (nano) electro mechanical systems applications has been so far a partial success only, although a great number of commercial and academic research tools dedicated to this problem are developed. In this paper we describe an application of the sparse field method for solving level set equations in 3D anisotropic wet etching of silicon with potassium hydroxide (KOH). Angular dependence of the silicon etching rate is determined on the basis of the silicon crystal symmetry properties. Some examples illustrating developed methodology are given.