Top down nano technologies in production of integrated circuits and surface modification of materials

Abstract

As microelectronic devices continue to shrink and process requirements become ever more stringent, plasma modeling and simulation becomes increasingly more attractive as a tool for design, control and optimization of plasma reactors. Nowadays, plasmaetching processes are expected to produce patterns from the nanometer to the micrometer range. Charging effects in the etching of dielectrics due to ions accumulation in the shallow trenches or contact hole cause damage such as notching and earlier etching stop. In this article, a brief overview of the plasma etch process with emphasis on charging induced damage has been made. In addition, a level set method was applied to the 3D simulation of the etching profile of high aspect ratio trenches into silicon. Calculations were performed in the case of simplified model of Ar + /CF 4 non-equilibrium plasma etching of SiO 2 . The time dependence of the profile charging as well as charging on profile during SiO 2 etching in plasma are presented. We shall also illustrate the properties of etching of organic low-k dielectrics.

The Effects of Chemical (isotropic) and Anisotropic Etching Processes on the Roughening of Nanocomposite Substrates

“…Different simulation techniques have been applied in the study of various artifacts observed in the real processing conditions, such as microtrenching, sidewall bowing, undercut and sidewall roughening [23,24] . And most efforts were focused on the simulation of nanocomposite materials roughening [25,26] . For that purpose, we developed a simulation model based on the level set method [27∼29] , which, if implemented correctly, can predict the evolution of the surface roughness during etching process.…”