Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) etching were used in the development of silica layers for planar waveguide applications. The addition of GeH4 to silica was used to control the refractive index of core layers with core-to-clad index differences in the range of 0.2%-1.3%. Refractive index uniformity variance of +-0.0003 was achieved after annealing for 4-inch Si <100> wafers. The core layers with thickness up to 6 μm were etched by ECR with optimized recipe and mask material. Low-loss silica-on-silicon waveguides whose propagation loss is approximately 0.07 dB/cm at 1550 nm are fabricated.