AVS 49th International Symposium
    Manufacturing Science and Technology Monday Sessions
       Session MS-MoA

Paper MS-MoA7
Dynamic Simulation and Optimization at the Unit Process Level for Environmentally Benign Semiconductor Manufacturing

Monday, November 4, 2002, 4:00 pm, Room C-109

Session: Control Issues in Electronics Manufacturing
Presenter: S. Cho, University of Maryland
Authors: S. Cho, University of Maryland
W. Lei, University of Maryland
G.W. Rubloff, University of Maryland
Correspondent: Click to Email
Environmentally benign semiconductor manufacturing requires methodologies which enable co-optimization of manufacturing and technology metrics (such as process cycle time, consumables costs, and product quality) along with environmental (ESH) metrics. We have investigated this challenge at the unit process level, focusing on Cu CVD unit process and equipment, using a physically-based dynamic simulation approach which takes into account the process recipe and resulting time-dependent behavior of vacuum and gas flow, heat transfer, reaction chemistry, and equipment components and control systems. Higher temperature and pressure yield reduced cycle time and precursor consumption, producing a "win-win" situation for manufacturing and ESH metrics. In contrast, changes in precursor flow rate produce trade-off situations between these metrics; at higher temperatures, however, significant gain in precursor consumption is indicated at lower flow rate, with relatively small cycle time penalty. Energy consumption per unit film thickness is substantially reduced at higher temperature because the deposition rate of the thermally activated CVD process increases faster with temperature than does the heating power required at typical process conditions. These results at the unit process level demonstrate that the dynamic simulation approach (1) provides insights into complex physical/chemical system behavior and quantitative estimates for tradeoff analysis, and (2) reveals "win-win" situations in which ESH and manufacturing benefits may be achieved together. This work is supported by the U. Arizona NSF/SRC Center for Environmentally Benign Semiconductor Manufacturing.