Etching of sub-micrometer structures through Stencil

Resistless processes to realize the pattern transfer of your designs into the substrate present some advantages, as the reduction in fabrication steps. Stencil Lithography (SL) is one of the most used resistless processes and, tip to now, it has mainly been used to perform local selective deposition of materials. Here, the local etching of different substrates through a stencil hard mask is presented. The compatibility with different etching conditions, the scalability of the technique and the main challenges are described. Minimum feature dimensions of 500 nm in polysilicon and 200 nm in LS-SiN is presented. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.