The plasma etching of the type H Kapton polyimide film has been studied in a parallel plate reactor with two different gas mixtures; and . High etching rate (0.5–3 μm/min) has been obtained in both cases. At a pressure of 0.2 Torr an anomalous loading effect is observed which is attributed to the nitrogen released by the polyimide. The gaseous effluents from etching have been detected by mass spectrometry and indicate that both atomic oxygen and atomic fluorine are the main etchants of the polymer. A comparison with silicon etching in a plasma is made in order to give the main channels of the reaction scheme. XPS measurements of the polyimide surface before and after etching are consistent with the mass spectrometric observations.