Fabrication via Electron Beam Lithography - SiEPIC/SiEPIC_EBeam_PDK GitHub Wiki

Fabrication via Electron Beam Lithography at the Washington Nanofabrication Facility (WNF)

Fabrication via this PDK is available via the edX silicon photonics course, and via direct purchase.

  • The fabrication is performed by Shane Patrick at the Washington Nanofabrication Facility at the University of Washington, Seattle.
  • The EBeam tool was purchased by a grant obtained by Prof. Michael Hochberg.
  • The process development was performed by Richard Bojko and Michael Hochberg’s group.
  • Numerous fabrication runs (30+) were performed by L. Chrostowski’s group at UBC, Prof. D. Ratner’s group, and others, since 2011, to stabilize the fabrication process and develop devices.
  • Fabrication coordination and PDK are provided by the SiEPIC program – www.siepic.ubc.ca. The fabrication flow has been used by many research groups, some examples which are provided in this document below, and online at the UW web page.
  • Details on the Ebeam and UW – https://ebeam.mff.uw.edu/ebeamweb
  • Typical cost for a single chip is 1,000-4,000.

##Fabrication

  • Soitec UNIBOND. 6”. Prime grade. 220 nm silicon with a 6 sigma of 22.3 nm. Buried Oxide thickness of 3.017 µm with a 6 sigma of 6 nm.
  • Negative resist, HSQ – https://ebeam.mff.uw.edu/ebeamweb/process/processmain.html
  • Pattered using a JEOL JBX-6300FS e-beam, with mask data prep performed by software “Beamer”. Using the 4th Lens Mode and Normal writing.
  • Single full-etch using ICP
  • 82º sidewall angle
  • Minimum isolated feature size of 60 nm.
  • Shot Pitch – Default is 6 nm. This is a “snapping” of all layout features to a 6 nm grid. Periodic structures, e.g., Bragg gratings, should use integer multiples of the Shot Pitch to avoid quantization errors. Smaller shot pitches (more expensive) and Shot pitch fracturing are available.
  • Write conditions – 4th Lens, 2-pass field shift writing, with default 6 nm shot pitch, 8 nA beam current.
  • Oxide cladding deposition, 2-3 µm, PECVD.
GDS# Name Description
1 Si Silicon 220 nm remaining.,Where drawn is 220 nm; elsewhere is 0 nm. Shot pitch = 6 nm.,Recommended for most silicon devices.
2 Text Text labels for automated measurements.
3 SEM_ROI SEM imaging requests (https://github.com/lukasc-ubc/SiEPIC_EBeam_PDK/wiki/Fabrication-via-Electron-Beam-Lithography#sem-images)
4 Si_p6nm Fabricated at the same time as Layer “Si”, except with Shot Pitch Fracturing of 1 nm. Cost is similar to Layer “Si”. See description below. Recommended for Bragg gratings. Layer is perfectly aligned to Layer “Si”.
5 Si_p2nm Fabricated at the same time as Layer “Si”, but not aligned to Layer “Si”. Shot Pitch = 2 nm. Cost is 8X higher than Layer “Si”.
6 Floorplan Indicate the assigned area for your layout with a rectangle.

Layout Tools

There are numerous tools that can produce the GDS files required for fabrication. The following is a description of several tools used by SiEPIC researchers:

KLayout

Mentor Graphics

  • Commercial EDA (Electronic Design Automation) tools.
  • Mentor Graphics Pyxis – for mask layout
  • Mentor Graphics Calibre – for verification
  • PDKs available for EBeam, IME and imec fabrication.

MatlabGDSPhotonicsToolbox

##SEM Images

  • SEM images available upon request, at an additional cost (typically 5 incremental cost per image + setup time)

  • Instrument: SEM JEOL JSM-7400; cold-field emission; operated at conditions near where the current of electrons emitted from the chip is not too different from the incident beam current which is typically 20-22 kV for the low beam currents used.

  • SEM image requests are done by:

    1. https://ebeam.mff.uw.edu/ebeamweb/remote/remote/sem_inspection_sites.html
    2. Drawing a rectangle around the area of interest, on layer “SEM_ROI”. Choose the size based on available ones.
    3. Add a text label with a name, on layer “SEM_ROI”
    4. Add an arrow on layer “Si” to help locate the device.

  • See example file “SEM/SEM.GDS”