Realistic Modeling of Electron Cyclotron Resonance Plasma Apparatus

Electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma sources have been applied to some semiconductor fabrication processes due to high density and controllability of many process parameters. However, the property of ECR plasma is strongly dependent on configurations of magnetic field, dimension of reactor chamber, and mode of microwave. So we have developed two-dimensional axisymmetric continuum model that can calculate and predict these dependence in a realistic configuration of production-line apparatus. The model consists of wave propagation part, plasma transport and generation part, and neutral transport and chemistry part. The first part calculates self-consistent global wave field in non-uniform density and magnetic field with a complicated waveguide and vacuum chamber boundary condition. The second part calculates plasma density and temperature using transport equations with power absorption calculated from local plasma dielectric tensor and the global wave field obtained by the first part. The third part treats gas dynamics and chemical reactions of neutral species. The results reported here show that applied microwave mode can change plasma density distribution significantly in a production-line ECR apparatus leading to a control of process uniformity.