2300 Selis

The Lam Research 2300 Selis is an etch chamber designed for semiconductor manufacturing. The 2300 Selis is a dielectric etch system that processes 300 mm (12 inch) wafers.^[1][3]

A plasma etch tool generates a radio-frequency (RF) discharge inside a vacuum chamber to ionize process gases and create a reactive plasma. The plasma contains energetic ions and chemically reactive radicals that bombard the wafer surface, enabling anisotropic or isotropic etching of exposed film layers. The wafer is held on a cathode that can be temperature-controlled to manage etch chemistry and profile.

In a semiconductor fabrication line, dielectric etch equipment is used after photoresist patterning to transfer the mask pattern into underlying insulating layers. The 2300 Selis is typically placed after lithography and develop steps, and before wet cleaning or metrology steps that inspect etch results.

Dielectric etch processes are critical for creating contact holes, via openings, and trench structures in intermetal dielectric (IMD) layers, as well as for defining hard masks and passivation layers. The tool processes wafers in the back-end-of-line (BEOL) for interconnect formation and in front-end-of-line (FEOL) for gate-stack patterning.

The 2300 Selis is used for etching dielectric films such as silicon dioxide (SiO₂), silicon nitride (Si₃N₄), and low-k dielectrics in advanced logic and memory devices. Applications include contact etch, via etch, and trench etch for copper damascene integration, as well as dielectric recess and spacer etch steps.