NSF Award
9960333
This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop a CAD tool for plasma equipment/ processes using a non-statistical Boltzmann solver for the analysis of charged particle kinetics. Currently used hydrodynamic models lack the necessary physics while the statistical (Monte Carlo) methods are too expensive for practical use. The proposed Boltzmann solver will enable precise yet affordable description of low-pressure plasma reactors for semiconductor manufacturing. The innovative aspects of the research include, (i) development of an elliptic representation of the velocity distribution function (VDF) valid for arbitrary anisotropy of the VDF, (ii) incorporation of the recently discovered hot plasma effects, and (iii) integration of the Boltzmann solver with a commercial software, CFD-ACE+, to enable simulations of industrial plasma systems. The elliptic representation reduces the Boltzmann equation to a set of two coupled equations in a four-dimensional space which can be solved by well-established techniques. In Phase I, the feasibility of the approach will be demonstrated on selected systems with small anisotropy of the VDF. The Phase II work will focus on extending the model to problems with arbitrary VDF anisotropy and on validation against experimental data and Monte Carlo simulations of industrial plasma reactors.<br/><br/>The CFD-ACE+ software, with the addition of the Boltzmann solver, will be capable of kinetic modeling of low pressure plasma processing reactors. The use of this software will significantly reduce design cycle times/costs for developing new equipment/processes for IC fabrication. Additionally, this tool will be used to analyze and optimize charge transport in deep sub-micron semiconductor devices.
