Currently, semiconductor manufacturing industry heavily relies on a wide range of high global warming potential (GWP) gases, particularly during etching and cleaning processes, and their use and relevant carbon emissions are subject to global rules and regulations for achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. To replace high GWP gases in near future, dry etching using alternative low GWP gases is thus being under intense investigations. In this review, we report a current status and recent progress of the relevant research activities on dry etching processes using a low GWP gas. First, we review the concept of GWP itself and then introduce the difference between high and low GWP gases. Although most of the studies have concentrated on potentially replaceable additive gases such as C₄F₈, an ultimate solution with a lower GWP for main etching gases including CF₄ should be developed; therefore, we provide our own perspective in this regard. Finally, we summarize the advanced dry etch process research with low GWP gases and list up several issues to be considered in future research.

We investigated the speed change of the diamond spherical abrasive during the substrate surface polishing under the pad compression by using classical molecular dynamics modeling. We performed three-dimensional molecular dynamics simulations using the Morse potential functions for the copper substrate and the Tersoff potential function for the diamond abrasive. As the compressive pressure increased, the indented depth of the diamond abrasive increased and then, the speed of the diamond abrasive along the direction of the pad moving was decreased. Molecular simulation result such as the abrasive speed decreasing due to the pad pressure increasing gave important information for the chemical mechanical polishing including the mechanical removal rate with both the pad speed and the pad compressive pressure.