Direct Simulation Monte Carlo Simulations of Low Pressure Semiconductor Plasma Processing

Journal Article · Wed Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 2008 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3076614· OSTI ID:21254973

Gochberg, L A ^[1]; Ozawa, T; Deng, H; Levin, D A ^[2]

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1. Novellus Systems, Inc. San Jose, CA 95134 (United States)
2. Department of Aerospace Engineering, Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802 (United States)

The two widely used plasma deposition tools for semiconductor processing are Ionized Metal Physical Vapor Deposition (IMPVD) of metals using either planar or hollow cathode magnetrons (HCM), and inductively-coupled plasma (ICP) deposition of dielectrics in High Density Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition (HDP-CVD) reactors. In these systems, the injected neutral gas flows are generally in the transonic to supersonic flow regime. The Hybrid Plasma Equipment Model (HPEM) has been developed and is strategically and beneficially applied to the design of these tools and their processes. For the most part, the model uses continuum-based techniques, and thus, as pressures decrease below 10 mTorr, the continuum approaches in the model become questionable. Modifications have been previously made to the HPEM to significantly improve its accuracy in this pressure regime. In particular, the Ion Monte Carlo Simulation (IMCS) was added, wherein a Monte Carlo simulation is used to obtain ion and neutral velocity distributions in much the same way as in direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC). As a further refinement, this work presents the first steps towards the adaptation of full DSMC calculations to replace part of the flow module within the HPEM. Six species (Ar, Cu, Ar*, Cu*, Ar{sup +}, and Cu{sup +}) are modeled in DSMC. To couple SMILE as a module to the HPEM, source functions for species, momentum and energy from plasma sources will be provided by the HPEM. The DSMC module will then compute a quasi-converged flow field that will provide neutral and ion species densities, momenta and temperatures. In this work, the HPEM results for a hollow cathode magnetron (HCM) IMPVD process using the Boltzmann distribution are compared with DSMC results using portions of those HPEM computations as an initial condition.

• OSTI ID: 21254973
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 1084; ISSN APCPCS; ISSN 0094-243X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ARGON IONS
CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
COPPER IONS
DIELECTRIC MATERIALS
DISTRIBUTION
GAS FLOW
HOLLOW CATHODES
MAGNETRONS
MODIFICATIONS
MONTE CARLO METHOD
PHYSICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION
PLASMA
PLASMA DENSITY
SEMICONDUCTOR MATERIALS
SUPERSONIC FLOW
VELOCITY