Nonequilibrium plasmas for material processing in microelectronics

In this paper we give a brief review of applications of non equilibrium plasmas in material processing with a particular emphasis on applications for ultra large scale integrated (ULSI) circuit production. In particular we shall discuss the maintaining mechanisms in the two most generally applied techniques capacitively coupled plasmas (CCP) and inductively coupled plasmas (ICP). For CCP those mechanisms have been established only recently, while for the ICP, the whole range of plasma sustaining mechanisms has not been established yet. As an illustration of a good agreement between theoretical models and experimental data we discuss plasma etching in narrow-gap reactive ion etcher (RIE) filled with SF₆.