Plasma is a complex system composed of a large number of electrons, ions, and neutral gas particles. If plasma is viewed as a whole, it exhibits quasi electrical neutrality as a whole. When an external electromagnetic field is applied, the internally charged particles will collectively respond to it. Plasma technology, as the foundation of many high-tech industries and major scientific projects, plays an important role in microelectronics industry, biomedicine, ecological environment protection, space development, and other fields. Especially in the field of chip processing technology, material surface treatment technology based on low-temperature plasma physical mechanism plays a crucial role. Radio frequency plasma used for material surface modification usually operates at low pressure. Due to the minimal collisions between particles, low-pressure radio frequency discharge is prone to generate large-area, uniform low-temperature non thermal equilibrium plasma. In the entire process of large-scale integrated circuit manufacturing, nearly one-third of the processes are completed using plasma technology. Therefore, the advancement of plasma technology has promoted the development of large-scale integrated circuit manufacturing, advanced the microelectronics industry and related manufacturing equipment, and triggered comprehensive and profound changes in modern society.

In the main processes of large-scale integrated circuit manufacturing, plasma technology is required to assist in processes such as thin film deposition, etching, and cleaning.

Plasma etching, the most common form of dry etching, is to completely replicate the mask pattern onto the surface of the silicon wafer, covering areas such as controlling the size of the front-end gate and etching the back-end metal aluminum. The principle is to apply a high-frequency electric field to the reaction gas, causing it to ionize and form plasma. The ionized gas is accelerated by the electric field, which accelerates the various processes of ion impact on the solid surface, such as ion sputtering, deposition, and ion implantation. A large number of active groups and neutral atomic groups in the excited state will undergo chemical reactions with the surface of the etched material, thus achieving the purpose of etching. As for the current etching process, RF capacitive coupled plasma is mainly used for etching dielectric materials, while inductively coupled plasma (ICP) is mainly used for etching metal and semiconductor Si.

In terms of thin film deposition, Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) technology is mainly used as the main process for low-pressure (several mTorr) thin film deposition. Among them, metal thin films are mainly prepared by direct current magnetron sputtering technology, while radio frequency magnetron sputtering technology is commonly used to prepare dielectric and oxide thin films. However, it has always had the problem of low sputtering rate. As a thin film deposition technology working at relatively high pressures (several hundred mTorr), plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) is widely used in the preparation of silicon or silicon oxide thin films for solar cells.

In the semiconductor manufacturing industry, plasma cleaning technology has become an indispensable means. Its main function is to effectively improve the surface cleanliness of semiconductor components during the production and manufacturing process, activate the surface, and improve product reliability. The dry cleaning method of plasma cleaning machine can remove pollutants and impurities attached to the surface of semiconductor chips without damaging the material properties of the chip surface. This method has significant advantages compared to other cleaning methods. The plasma cleaning machine has obvious advantages in cleaning, simple operation, controllable accuracy, no heating required throughout the process, no pollution generated, safe and reliable. This equipment has large-scale applications in the field of semiconductor packaging.

With the rapid development of microelectronics technology, research on semiconductor technology has become increasingly important, and low-temperature plasma technology plays an important role in semiconductor processes.