Etching and Deposition Modeling Using Level Set Methods

Several silicon dioxide chemical vapor deposition processes using high density plasma sources have been recently proposed in the literature [4,6] for deposition of self-planarizing inter-level dielectric deposition. All these processes exhibit the competitive effect of simultaneous deposition and etching mechanisms. In previous papers [1,2,3], a level set approach was developed for etching and deposition simulations for 2D and 3D profiles, including the effects of complex sputter laws under ion milling, visibility, material-dependent etch rates, and sensitive flux integrations. Here, we present the extension of that work to arbitrary 3D geometries under simultaneous etching and deposition, including re-deposition, re-emission with variable sticking coefficients and multiple effects.