Multiscale modeling of plasma etch processing

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the recent developments in simulation capabilities of the plasma-assisted processes. Different scale-related models are considered. A reactor-scale model produces electric fields, ion and neutral densities as a function of position, and ion and neutral fluxes incident on to the wafer. A sheath model represents the spatial distributions of fields and fluxes at gas–solid boundaries as well as particle energy and angular distributions for ions and neutrals striking the wafer and other solid surfaces. A feature-scale model uses Monte Carlo (MC) or ballistic integral methods to evolve an etched profile based on the fluxes and particle energy-angular distributions generated by the sheath model. The effect of pattern density on the etch-induced feature profile is considered as an example of the implementation of multi-scale plasma simulation.