Modeling Approach and Analysis of the Structural Parameters of an Inductively Coupled Plasma Etcher Based on a Regression Orthogonal Design

The geometry of an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etcher is usually considered to be an important factor for determining both plasma and process uniformity over a large wafer. During the past few decades, these parameters were determined by the “trial and error” method, resulting in wastes of time and funds. In this paper, a new approach of regression orthogonal design with plasma simulation experiments is proposed to investigate the sensitivity of the structural parameters on the uniformity of plasma characteristics. The tool for simulating plasma is CFD-ACE+, which is commercial multi-physical modeling software that has been proven to be accurate for plasma simulation. The simulation experimental results are analyzed to get a regression equation on three structural parameters. Through this equation, engineers can compute the uniformity of the electron number density rapidly without modeling by CFD-ACE+. An optimization performed at the end produces good results.