durusmail: mems-talk: Re : Dispensing of SU8-100
Re : Dispensing of SU8-100
2002-12-16
Re : Dispensing of SU8-100
Mark Shaw
2002-12-16
Dear Franck,

Thanks for the challenge.....As a rule we recommend a dispense volume of 1ml per
inch, but obviously this is influenced by a number of other parameters, the
viscosity of the resist being a key one, however I believe that as a matter of
routine we are not dispensing any more than 10ml per 4inch wafer in our
Applications Lab here in Newton, MA....

Other parameters that will affect the dispense volume of SU-8 100 :

*       Spin Coater - Here at MicroChem we use a Brewer Science CEE 100CB coater
and find that for all SU-8 formulations the volume required to uniformly coat a
4 inch silicon wafer is consistently below 10ml, and for the less viscous
formulations this can go as low as 2ml...What type of spin coater are you
currently using ?
*       Coating environment - We have found a correlation between the ambient
temperature of the environment where the wafers are being coated and the film
thickness/uniformity....For example, a decrease in the temperature causes a
significant increase in the viscosity and hence a thicker film is produced, this
also has an impact on the coating uniformity and coverage of the wafer....Here
at MicroChem we control the coating environment to 71F +/- 1F...All of the data
included in the data sheets and on the website were generated using this
setpoint...Should you be using different setpoints you will see different
coatings and film thicknesses, and different dispense volumes will be
required....
*       Dispense Method - I believe the method you currently use is static
dispense, ie the wafer is not rotating while you dispense the SU-8 100 to the
substrate, is this correct ?....You may want to try rotating the wafer at around
250rpm-500rpm while you dispense the resist, then perform an intermediate spread
cycle, followed by the final spin speed....this should help to keep the resist
moving over the surface and provide a better coat with less material
consumed....
*       Final Film Thickness - The final film thickness you require can also
impact the coating phase in that a higher spin speed will allow for less
material to be dispensed, due to improved spreading, but will also yield a lower
film thickness...By using a higher spin speed you can also obtain more uniform
coatings and in fact in order to gain very thick films of greater than 300ums we
recommend performing 2 or more coats so that higher spin speeds can be used to
get more uniform coats without the large edge bead being produced, of course a
bake step needs to be performed in between each coating phase....

I hope the information listed above is of use to you and should you have any
questions please do not hesitate to contact me....

Mark Shaw
Technical Sales & Applications Support
MicroChem Corp.

email: mshaw@microchem.com
url: www.microchem.com

Dear all,
I'm proposing a small competition:
who could use the smallest amount of SU8-100 photoresist to fully spin-coat
one wafer?

Please detail your method and what is the best figure you have obtained
sofar expressing them in ml/inch for easier comparison.

And what will be the price for the winner? Well, the eternal thanks from his
peers, some disdain from the manufacturer (no, I'm sure they are not that
mean :-), and for sure a full feature into
http://aveclafaux.freeservers.com/SU-8.html#top!

And don't be shy, the 'best' method I know of currently (pouring from the
bottle a central puddle then two steps spinning, with first a few hundred
rpm to dispense and then ramping to the final speed) is using more than
25ml/4inch wafer (7ml/inch...) :-(
FranCk
PS: don't forget it is for SU8-100 only, the most visquous in the standard
MCC series.


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