Wet-Chemical Etching and Cleaning of Silicon

A Introduction Research and manufacturing related to silicon devices, circuits, and systems often relies on the wet-chemical etching of silicon wafers. The dissolution of silicon using liquid solutions is needed for deep etching and micromachining, shaping, and cleaning. Also, wet-chemistries are often used for defect delineation in single crystal silicon materials. In this paper, a review of the typical wet-chemical recipes used by engineers is given. As many sources as possible have been used to present a concise listing of etchants and processes.