A COMPUTATIONAL MODEL FOR THE DISCHARGE PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY IN PLASMA PROCESSING

PLASMA PROCESSING HAS BECOME AN IMPORTANT TECHNIQUE IN SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE FABRICATION. IN ORDER TO IMPROVE PROCESS REPRODUCIBILITY AND DEVELOP PROCESS AND QUALITY CONTROL, THE GEC REFERENCE CELL HAS BEEN CHOSEN AT NIST AS THE EXPERIMENTAL STANDARD REACTOR WHICH IS DESIGNED TO ADVANCE THE NEXT GENERATION PLASMA PROCESSING EQUIPMENT. THE PROPOSED EFFORT ADDRESSES DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPREHENSIVEPREDICTIVE MODEL FOR PLASMA PROCESSING WHICH IS A NECESSARY ADJUNCT TO EXPERIMENTS AT NIST AND OTHER PLACES. THE MODEL WILL INCLUDE APPROPRIATE DISCHARGE PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY. BOTH FLUID SCHEMES AND KINETIC SCHEMES WILL BE EXPLORED IN THE MULTI-PHASE EFFORT. THE KINETIC SCHEME INVOLVES AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH WHERE THE LIOUVILLE EQUATION - WILL BE SOLVED IN COORDINATE REPRESENTATION. THIS REQUIRES MUCH LESS COMPUTATIONAL RESOURCES THAN ANY OF THE CURRENT KINETICSCHEMES, SUCH AS PARTICLE-IN-CELL METHODS. IN PHASE I, A FLUID SCHEME BASED ON THE THREE MOMENTS OF THE BOLTZMANN EQUATION WILL BE USED ALONG WITH COLLISION DATA FROM A MONTECARLO SCHEME. INNOVATIVE COMPUTATIONAL SCALING WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ACCELERATE CONVERGENCE OF THE COMPUTATION. THE MODEL RESULTS WILL BE VALIDATED BY COMPARING AGAINST NIST REFERENCE CELL MEASUREMENTS. IT IS EXPECTED THAT THE PROPOSED MODEL WILL PROVIDE INSIGHT INTO VARIOUS MECHANISMS AND SERVE AS A COST-EFFECTIVE DESIGN TOOL IN DEVELOPING EQUIPMENT AND REPRODUCIBLE PROCESSES.