Film thickness distribution in magnetron sputtering

Of crucial importance to the thin film process engineer is an understanding of the parameters which affect the film thickness distributions which may be obtained from magnetron sources. This paper describes how variations in source design, target erosion and source-to-substrate distance affect observed uniformities from a magnetron source. A simple method of simulating magnetron sources using target erosion data is described. Film thickness distributions for circular planar magnetrons are shown for a number of different source-substrate distances and for various target erosion patterns. The implications of these results to the design of magnetron sources and to the process engineer are discussed.