Researchers attend plasma processing presentation

“The plasma workshop presented by Plasma-Therm was interesting and informative,” said Ci-Ling Pan, Vice President, Office of Research and Development, and Tsing Hua, Chair Prof., Department of Physics, National Tsing Hua University. “The attendees gained valuable insights into plasma processing for various applications, including semiconductors, MEMS devices, photonics and emerging technologies such as plasma dicing,” Professor Pan said.

In addition to talks discussing the basics of plasma processing and presentations addressing etching of dielectrics, compound semiconductors, and deep silicon etching, for the first time, the workshop included an overview of plasma dicing, separating the individual dies formed on silicon wafers. This technology is expected to supplant the use of saws for wafer dicing. Plasma-Therm’s plasma Singulator systems allow manufacturers to place more dies on each wafer, increase throughput, improve die strength and implement solutions for advanced packaging issues, such as dicing ultrathin wafers and designing dies shaped to avoid corner-stress complications.

The workshop lectures and multimedia materials by Dr. David Lishan Principal Scientist and Director, Technical Marketing, Plasma-Therm, offered attendees a thorough introduction to plasma processing fundamentals. Dr. Lishan also presented in-depth information about plasma etch and deposition applications for fabricating integrated circuits and other micro- and nano-scale devices.

Dr. Lishan has presented plasma processing workshops at more than 20 institutions in the United States, Israel, Taiwan, China, Singapore, and other countries. This was the sixth workshop he has presented across Asia in the past two years. Dr. Lishan noted that the desire for better understanding of plasma processing by students and industrial researchers across many fields of research has never been higher.

"Bringing researchers together to share experiences and foster collaboration through the workshop has been very rewarding,” he added. “In addition to fostering knowledge about the capabilities and potential uses of plasma processing, the workshops are a valuable networking opportunity for people in diverse fields.”