Computational Analysis and Optimization of a Chemical Vapor Deposition Reactor with Large-Scale Computing

Abstract

A computational analysis and optimization is presented for the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of silicon in a horizontal rotating-disk reactor. A three-dimensional reactor-scale model for the gas flow, heat transfer, and mass transfer in a CVD reactor is coupled to a simple transport-limited surface reaction mechanism for the deposition of epitaxial silicon from trichlorosilane. The model is solved to steady state for the deposition rate profile over the 8-in. silicon wafer using an unstructured-grid finite-element method and a fully coupled inexact Newton method on parallel computers. Because a high degree of spatial uniformity in the deposition rate is desired, parameter continuation runs for six key operating parameters, including the inlet flow rate and the rotation rate of the substrate, were performed and their individual effects analyzed. Finally, optimization runs were performed that located operating conditions that predict nonuniformity as low as 0.1%.