Patent ID: 7022616

Claim:
A high-rate silicon etching method wherein, by using a magnetron etching apparatus having a process chamber which can be held in vacuum, a pair of electrodes provided in the process chamber to sandwich a process space, RF power supply means for applying RF power of not less than 27 MHz for plasma generation to an electrode where an object to be processed is held, thereby forming an RF electric field in the process space, an etching gas inlet mechanism which introduces an etching gas containing a fluorine compound gas into the process space, thereby forming a gas atmosphere, and magnetic field forming means for forming in the process space a magnetic field perpendicular to the RF electric field and directed in one direction, when etching a silicon region at a high rate of not less than 20 μm/min such that orthogonal electromagnetic fields are formed in the process space to generate a plasma in the gas atmosphere, and an object to be processed is set such that the silicon region of an etching target surface of the object to be processed is in contact with the plasma, etching is performed by setting a gas pressure in the process space to 13 Pa to 1,333 Pa (100 mTorr to 10 Torr), and wherein a distance between a plasma generation region in the process space and an etching surface of the object to be processed is not more than 20 mm.