AN ultra-low cost deep reactive ion etching (drie) tool for flexible, small volume manufacturing

Our goal is to demonstrate that we can achieve a radical reduction in the capital cost of micro/nano-manufacturing without sacrificing performance by scaling production throughput. As a demonstration of this concept, we show for the first time a DRIE system that processes small substrates (~1 in
²
) with performance comparable to commercial systems for a capital cost below $32K. We have designed, built and tested this system, which currently can achieve silicon etch rates up to 2.8 μm/min with vertical sidewall profiles, an estimated photoresist selectivity greater than 50:1, and etch depth non-uniformity to less than 2% across the substrate.