Title |
Capacitively Coupled Plasma Simulation for Low-k Materials Etching Process Using H_2/N_2 gas |
Abstract |
The resistance-capacitance (RC) delay of signals through interconnection materials becomes a big hurdle for high speed operation of semiconductors which contain multi-layer interconnections in smaller scales with higher integration density. Low-k materials are applied to the inter-metal dielectric (IMD) materials in order to overcome the RC delay. Relaxation continuum (RCT) model that includes neutral-species transport model have developed to model the etching process in a capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) device. We present the parametric study of the modeling results of a two-frequency capacitively coupled plasma (2f-CCP) with N_2/H_2 gas mixture that is known as promising one for organic low-k materials etching. For the etching of low-k materials by N_2/H_2 plasma, N and H atoms have a big influence on the materials. Moreover the distributions of excited neutral species influence the plasma density and profile. We include the neutral transport model as well as plasma one in the calculation. The plasma and neutrals are calculated self-consistently by iterating the simulation of both species till a spatio-temporal steady state profile could be obtained. |