ITO dry-etching mechanism and its application in the fabrication of LCDs

Based on HI gas-plasma etching (high-density plasma-assisted RIE), the activation energy for an ITO dry-etching reaction was obtained. The value was calculated 35-40 kJ/mol for 20 sec from the reaction starting time. The reaction dead time is characteristic of the ITO dry-etching process, but the reaction is relatively simple. Therefore, ITO dry-etching technology, based on HI gas plasma, is useful in the the fabrication of LCDs, and was used in a recently developed Multi-Coaxial-Plasma-Source (MCPS) dry etcher.