Modeling of the effect of radicals on plasmas used for etching in microelectronics

Abstract

Plasma etching represents one of the critical steps in manufacturing of integrated circuits. Further optimization of plasma equipment is needed since new generations in technology require different plasma chemistry. In this paper, we will study the influence of radicals on the plasma characteristics, since it was often neglected in plasma models. The radicals dominate attachment of electrons as the basic etching mixture is weakly electronegative and they also affect the drift velocity through modified momentum balance. We have used numerical solutions to the Boltzmann equation and Monte Carlo simulations (MCS) to determine the transport coefficients of electrons.

Keywords

• cf4
• transport coefficients
• global model
• monte carlo code