Abstract: A gas mixture for use in the selective dry etching of a nitride insulator layer relative to an oxide insulator layer comprising: a gas mixture containing chlorine and oxygen. The oxygen in this gas mixture must comprise 15% or less by volume.In a preferred process embodiment for ethcing Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 and leaving a layer of SiO.sub.2 therebelow, Cl.sub.2 gas may be used in combination with 12% or less oxygen by volume. Etch selectivity of greater than five to one is achieved with this gas mixture when a plasma RF frequency of less than 1 MHz is utilized. When a high frequency RF component in the range of 10-27 MHz is added to the RF excitation signal, then an etch uniformity of better than 3% is achieved.

Abstract: Disclosed is a process for etching semiconductor materials with a high etch rate against an insulator mask using a novel etchant gas mixture. The mixture consists of a chlorocarbon (e.g., CCl.sub.2 F.sub.2, CCl.sub.4 or CCl.sub.3 F), SF.sub.6, O.sub.2 and an inert gas (e.g. He). The preferred gas mixture contains 2/1 ratio of the chlorocarbon to SF6 and the following composition: 1-4% of SF.sub.6, 3-10% of O.sub.2, 74-93% of He and 3-10% of chlorocarbon. The etch rate of silicon (or silicide) against an oxide mask using this etchant gas mixture under normal etching conditions is high, on the order of 30-40. An impressive feature of the process is shape control of trenches by mere manipulation of the RIE system power.

Abstract: A method for producing deeply recessed oxidized regions in silicon. A series of deep trenches are formed in a silicon wafer by a reactive ion etching (RIE) method. In a first species, the trenches are of equal width. A block-off mask is selectively employed during part of the RIE process to produce trenches of unequal depth. The trench walls are thermally oxidized to completely fill in all of the trenches with oxide at the same time. In a second species, the trenches are of equal depth and width and of uniform spacing. In one aspect of the second species, the width of the trenches is equal to the distance between the trenches whereby the thermal oxidation completely fills in the trenches with oxide at the same time that the silicon between the trenches is fully converted to silicon oxide.