Electromagnetic Modeling of Plasma Etch Chamber for Semiconductor Microchip Fabrication
In the plasma etch chamber used to fabricate semiconductor microchips, maintain-ing the symmetry and uniformity of the electric field in the plasma discharge region is critical. Very-high-frequency (VHF) RF sources are attractive for such applications as they improve the efficiency of plasma generation. Electromagnetic effects become important at these frequencies, and etch chamber design requires careful investigation of the electromagnetic field spatial struc-ture in the chamber. In this paper, we apply the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method to examine various electromagnetic effects in the plasma etch chamber and investigate strategies for improved chamber design. These effects include the standing wave effects and asymmetric field distributions that can be caused by asymmetric RF power feed configurations. The FDTD method is formulated in both cylindrical and Cartesian coordinate systems to facilitate modeling of rotationally symmetric chamber and asymmetric RF feed structures. The electric field dis-tribution generated by various RF feed configurations is studied at different VHF frequencies. Based on the FDTD simulations, we have been able to identify a variety of design approaches for ensuring electric field symmetry and uniformity.
Zhigang Chen Shahid Rauf Kartik Ramaswamy Ken Collins
Applied Materials,Inc.,Sunnyvale,California 94085,USA
国际会议
Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium 2009(2009年电磁学研究新进展学术研讨会)(PIERS 2009)
北京
英文
753-757
2009-03-23（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）