We studied BCl 3 dry etching of GaAs in a planar inductively coupled plasma system. The investigated process parameters were planar ICP source power, chamber pressure, RIE chuck power and gas flow rate. The ICP source power was varied from 0 to 500 W. Chamber pressure, RIE chuck power and gas flow rate were controlled from 5 to 15 mTorr, 0 to 150 W and 10 to 40 sccm, respectively. We found that a process condition at 20 sccm BCl 3 300 W ICP, 100 W RIE and 7.5 mTorr chamber pressure gave an excellent etch result. The etched GaAs feature depicted extremely smooth surface (RMS roughness 3000\AA /min) and good selectivity to a photoresist (> 3 : 1). XPS study indicated a very clean surface of the material after dry etching of GaAs. We also noticed that our planar ICP source was successfully ignited both with and without RIE chuck power, which was generally not the case with a typical cylindrical ICP source, where assistance of RIE chuck power was required for turning on a plasma and maintaining it. It demonstrated that the planar ICP source could be a very versatile tool for advanced dry etching of damage-sensitive compound semiconductors.