Plasma processes have gained a lot of popularity in recent years due to the many advantages that it offers to various industries. It is a cleaner and cheaper process. It is available widely due to efforts from Alpha Plasma. Companies have gained much by using this method. The plasma technology makes the processes faster.
Etching is a process by which some of the materials in a particular pattern are removed from the surface of the material. This process is widely used in the integrated circuits industry. Earlier the wet etching process was used for etching. This process uses chemicals to remove the material from the surface. The problems with wet etching are many. The chemicals can affect the material under the masking changing its characteristics too. There is a requirement of a large amount of liquid for this process to achieve the required etching rate. There is also a need for covering the whole surface of the material with the liquid etchant. This will result in a huge increase in cost. There is also the question of safe disposal of this liquid.
Dry plasma etching uses a beam of plasma being shot at the material surface to remove it. Dry etching is much cheaper than the wet etching method. It is also a cleaner method as there is no liquid to be disposed of. The plasma is of a gas mixture is shot at the material. Plasma etching is also used for changing the material surface from being hydrophilic to hydrophobic and vice versa. It can also change the contact angles to either be reduced or increased depending on the gas used to form the plasma. It can also reduce the roughness of metal surfaces to a great extent.
Alpha Plasma makes the microwave plasma equipment which is used in many industries. The equipment comes in various sizes for use in industries of different capacities. We have been the first to introduce this technology in Singapore and the nearby nations. We have done much work on this technology to make it available even for the smaller industries. We have made it affordable for all so that their processes are faster. We continue to work on improving the technology so that it can have a wider application.
SU8 removal is another main use of plasma technology. This can remove the epoxy photoresist without affecting the layers beneath or the metal around the target area where the cleaning has to be done.
