Equipment modelling of CVD and etching

This paper presents results of equipment simulation giving applications of the fluid-dynamic solution to three commonly used reactors in the semiconductor industry — Tungsten CVD, Aluminum plasma etching, and Poly LPCVD. The results obtained include the determination of three-dimensional profiles for pressure, temperature, velocity, concentration of different chemical species, etch rates, deposition rates and uniformity over the wafer. This simulation technique is an important tool for equipment and process optimization by both the equipment suppliers and process engineers, because it allows a better visualization of the variables that control the process and allows a fast estimation of how changes on the process parameters or hardware configuration influence the results.