A Plasma-Etching Process Modeling Via a Polynomial Neural Network

Abstract

A plasma is a collection of charged particles and on average is electrically neutral. In fabricating integrated circuits, plasma etching is a key means to transfer a photoresist pattern into an underlayer material. To construct a predictive model of plasma-etching processes, a polynomial neural network (PNN) is applied. This process was characterized by a full factorial experiment, and two attributes modeled are its etch rate and DC bias. According to the number of input variables and type of polynomials to each node, the prediction performance of the PNN was optimized. The various performances of the PNN in diverse environments were compared to three types of statistical regression models and the adaptive network fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). As the demonstrated high-prediction ability in the simulation results shows, the PNN is efficient and much more accurate from the point of view of approximation and prediction abilities.