Dry etching of Combined Gallium Nitride Epitaxial Layer and Silicon Carbide Substrate

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Shared Services Center seeks dry etching services on a combined Gallium Nitride epitaxial layer and Silicon Carbide substrate, with responses due July 10, 2026. This is not a request for quotes; price offers will not be reviewed or accepted at this time, and technical capability evaluation requires more than pricing information alone.

The procurement involves fabrication and processing of one 3-inch diameter, approximately 350-micron thick single crystal 4H-SiC wafer pre-electroplated with a patterned nickel etch mask. The vendor must etch the wafer to 280 microns depth to create a diaphragm with approximately 70-micron thickness and radii ranging from 300 to 900 microns. Deliverable requirements include achieving diaphragm thickness uniformity of 5% across the 3-inch wafer; producing smooth diaphragm surfaces with fewer than 5 micro mask artifacts per surface; ensuring features are smooth and free of scallops; maintaining a reasonable radius at the diaphragm base-to-sidewall intersection without notching; eliminating edge-wall trenching artifacts; and achieving an aspect ratio (etched depth/etched width) of no less than 5, with higher ratios preferred. The vendor shall also dry-etch the top side p-GaN layer to 3 micrometers using a provided SiO₂ etch mask to expose the 4H-SiC surface, confirm etched depth measurements, perform solvent cleaning in acetone followed by isopropanol, and provide depth confirmations. Etch recipe methodology shall be determined by the foundry. The NAICS code is 334413, Semiconductor and Related Device Manufacturing; PSC is AJ12, General Science And Technology R&D Services.