AVS 50th International Symposium
    Workshop on Sputtering Sunday Sessions
       Session WS-SuM

Invited Paper WS-SuM6
Modeling of Sputtering Equipment and Processes as an Engineering Tool: Building a Virtual Sputter Tool

Sunday, November 2, 2003, 11:40 am, Room Constellation C, Hyatt Regency

Session: Workshop on Sputtering (Morning Session)
Presenter: J.C.S. Kools, Veeco Instruments
Correspondent: Click to Email

In recent years, computational modeling has emerged as an attractive engineering tool to substantially reduce the development time and cost for both equipment and process development of industrial thin film deposition and etch. Furthermore, due to the dramatic increase in computing power available, advanced computational techniques such as Molecular Dynamics have migrated from the academic community to the engineering community, bringing more realistic models within its reach. Our goal is to build a "virtual sputter tool" that could predict the sputter equipment behavior and film properties. Fig.1 sketches the outline of a virtual sputter tool. As can be seen, such a Multiscale/Multiphysics model comprises both advanced computational techniques, such as Particle-In-Cell Monte-Carlo (PIC-MC) and conventional continuum descriptions such as Finite Element Analysis (FEA). In this talk, we will review the progress that has been made towards building a virtual sputter tool, comparing modeling and experimental results. We will put most emphasis on the right hand side of the diagram, namely the modeling of film properties, in the context of industrial application. We will discuss the future outlook towards completion of the virtual sputter tool.