Post‐Treatments for Reactive Ion Etching of Al‐Si‐Cu Alloys

Aluminum alloy (Al-0.9%Si-0.4%Cu) conductors etched with chlorine-containing plasma corrode in humid atmosphere or in aqueous solutions of a cleaning step unless appropriate post-treatments are performed. The effect of the post-treatments of CF 4 , CF 4 /O 2 , O 2 plasmas, and H 2 O rinse on suppressing the corrosion of the conductors was investigated using Auger electron and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopies