Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Wet Chemical Etching of Silicon Wafers

Wet chemical etching is widely used in semiconductor production processes. The advantage lies in low investment costs and the absence of mechanical stress during etching. This method allows producing of extremely thin and flat wafers. However, etching is strongly influenced by hydrodynamics. To estimate the wafer surface profile after wet chemical etching, numerical simulations of fluid flow coupled with species transport using a simplified chemical reaction are carried out. It is shown that this approach can be applied with good accuracy to estimate etching rate for various operation conditions.