A Comparison of Plasma and Mechanical Dicing of Indium Phosphide

REYNOLDS, JACK

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A Comparison of Plasma and Mechanical Dicing of Indium Phosphide / JACK REYNOLDS

Swansea University Author: JACK REYNOLDS

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Abstract

Compound semiconductor materials such as Indium Phosphide (InP) are widely used in devices such as optoelectronic devices. As these materials and devices become more advanced they become increasingly expensive to fabricate. These high fabrication costs mean that yield has to be high to reduce wasted...

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Published:	Swansea 2026
Institution:	Swansea University
Degree level:	Master of Research
Degree name:	MSc by Research
Supervisor:	Meredith, P., Burwell, G., and Ritchie, D.
URI:	https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71904

first_indexed	2026-05-14T14:27:39Z
last_indexed	2026-05-15T05:42:00Z
id	cronfa71904
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spelling	2026-05-14T15:27:38.1401642 v2 71904 2026-05-14 A Comparison of Plasma and Mechanical Dicing of Indium Phosphide 024349d8f15259f55975e5969a1f5122 JACK REYNOLDS JACK REYNOLDS true false 2026-05-14 Compound semiconductor materials such as Indium Phosphide (InP) are widely used in devices such as optoelectronic devices. As these materials and devices become more advanced they become increasingly expensive to fabricate. These high fabrication costs mean that yield has to be high to reduce wasted material. These demands necessitate the need for a lower defect inducing dicing method as an alternative to conventional saw dicing. This work focuses on developing a novel dicing process for InP using an inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etcher (ICP-RIE). A SiO2 hard mask as well as two photoresist masks SU-8 and polyimide were evaluated under two diﬀerent plasma chemistries to etch InP. The aim of the work was a >100 µm deep etch to show that plasma dicing is applicable to InP. As the work was focused on dicing a particular focus was placed on achieving a high etch rate and selectivity while still maintaining a vertical anisotropic etch. The concept was ﬁrst demonstrated on a 15 mm by 15 mm piece using an SU-8 mask with a HBr plasma chemistry, an etch depth of 137.75 ± 9.95 µm was achieved in 60 minutes, corresponding to an average etch rate of 2.30 ± 0.15 µm/min and a selectivity of 20.9:1. Scaling the up the surface area to a 25 mm by 25 mm pieces only reduced the etch rate by 0.32 µm/min, indicating the process can be extended to whole wafer dicing. Post-etch removal of the SU-8 mask was also investigated with P1316 yielding the lowest surface roughness of the removal methods trialled (5.68 nm compared to the original 3.19 nm). Plasma induced defects were assessed and compared with a saw diced sample. Saw dicing exhibited defect regions with reduced recombination eﬃciency extending from 1 µm at 5 keV to >4 µm at 20 keV on both sides of the trench. In contrast, the average defect region width was 2 µm and 1.28 µm for the HBr and Cl/Ar chemistry respectively. These results have demonstrated that plasma dicing is a applicable process for low defect die singulation of InP. E-Thesis Swansea Indium Phosphide (InP), Plasma dicing, Inductively coupled plasma (ICP), Die singulation, Cathodoluminescence (CL) 9 4 2026 2026-04-09 A selection of content is redacted or is partially redacted from this thesis to protect sensitive and personal information. COLLEGE NANME COLLEGE CODE Swansea University Meredith, P., Burwell, G., and Ritchie, D. Master of Research MSc by Research KLA Corporation KLA Corporation 2026-05-14T15:27:38.1401642 2026-05-14T15:21:08.4408205 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Physics JACK REYNOLDS 1 71904__36734__de1ec60fa957480daadaaa23762f4387.pdf 2026_Reynolds_J.final.71904.pdf 2026-05-14T15:26:35.3132903 Output 17039279 application/pdf E-Thesis – open access true Copyright: the author, Jack Reynolds, 2026. Distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). true eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
title	A Comparison of Plasma and Mechanical Dicing of Indium Phosphide
spellingShingle	A Comparison of Plasma and Mechanical Dicing of Indium Phosphide JACK REYNOLDS
title_short	A Comparison of Plasma and Mechanical Dicing of Indium Phosphide
title_full	A Comparison of Plasma and Mechanical Dicing of Indium Phosphide
title_fullStr	A Comparison of Plasma and Mechanical Dicing of Indium Phosphide
title_full_unstemmed	A Comparison of Plasma and Mechanical Dicing of Indium Phosphide
title_sort	A Comparison of Plasma and Mechanical Dicing of Indium Phosphide
author_id_str_mv	024349d8f15259f55975e5969a1f5122
author_id_fullname_str_mv	024349d8f15259f55975e5969a1f5122_***_JACK REYNOLDS
author	JACK REYNOLDS
author2	JACK REYNOLDS
format	E-Thesis
publishDate	2026
institution	Swansea University
college_str	Faculty of Science and Engineering
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hierarchy_top_id	facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_top_title	Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchy_parent_id	facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_parent_title	Faculty of Science and Engineering
department_str	School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Physics{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Physics
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description	Compound semiconductor materials such as Indium Phosphide (InP) are widely used in devices such as optoelectronic devices. As these materials and devices become more advanced they become increasingly expensive to fabricate. These high fabrication costs mean that yield has to be high to reduce wasted material. These demands necessitate the need for a lower defect inducing dicing method as an alternative to conventional saw dicing. This work focuses on developing a novel dicing process for InP using an inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etcher (ICP-RIE). A SiO2 hard mask as well as two photoresist masks SU-8 and polyimide were evaluated under two diﬀerent plasma chemistries to etch InP. The aim of the work was a >100 µm deep etch to show that plasma dicing is applicable to InP. As the work was focused on dicing a particular focus was placed on achieving a high etch rate and selectivity while still maintaining a vertical anisotropic etch. The concept was ﬁrst demonstrated on a 15 mm by 15 mm piece using an SU-8 mask with a HBr plasma chemistry, an etch depth of 137.75 ± 9.95 µm was achieved in 60 minutes, corresponding to an average etch rate of 2.30 ± 0.15 µm/min and a selectivity of 20.9:1. Scaling the up the surface area to a 25 mm by 25 mm pieces only reduced the etch rate by 0.32 µm/min, indicating the process can be extended to whole wafer dicing. Post-etch removal of the SU-8 mask was also investigated with P1316 yielding the lowest surface roughness of the removal methods trialled (5.68 nm compared to the original 3.19 nm). Plasma induced defects were assessed and compared with a saw diced sample. Saw dicing exhibited defect regions with reduced recombination eﬃciency extending from 1 µm at 5 keV to >4 µm at 20 keV on both sides of the trench. In contrast, the average defect region width was 2 µm and 1.28 µm for the HBr and Cl/Ar chemistry respectively. These results have demonstrated that plasma dicing is a applicable process for low defect die singulation of InP.
published_date	2026-04-09T06:42:00Z
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score	11.106

A Comparison of Plasma and Mechanical Dicing of Indium Phosphide / JACK REYNOLDS

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