Comparison of CF4 and C4F8 gas etching profiles by multiscale simulation

Abstract

The CF4 and C4F8 gas etching profiles of oxide films were compared by multiscale simulation that comprises gas reaction, sheath, and surface reaction models. The densities of CF3, CF2, and CF radicals in CF4/Ar or C4F8/Ar gas were measured and compared with those obtained by simulation using the gas reaction model. From this comparison, the electron temperatures were determined to be 2.8 and 4.5 eV for CF4 and C4F8 gases, respectively. In the sheath model, the behavior of ions in a sheath was simulated for sheath lengths calculated from these electron temperatures. In the surface reaction model, we simulated the formation of a polymer and active layers by CF2 radicals, determined the depth of etching resulting from ion bombardment, and obtained the etching profiles of the oxide films. The profile of a contact hole with a depth of 820 nm and an aperture diameter of 160 nm was simulated. The results showed that the photoresist height was approximately 70 nm greater and the bowing diameter was approximately 10 nm smaller in the case of using C4F8 gas than in the case of using CF4 gas. This is because the CF2 density in the C4F8 gas is approximately 30 times higher than that in the CF4 gas and the polymer layer more strongly protects the underlying film. When the etching profiles were simulated with a fixed density of positive ions but with various CF2 density, the bottom diameter was constant but the bowing diameter changed for CF2 densities between 1013 and 1014 cm−3.