Simulation of discharge characteristics of capacitively coupled plasma

The RF-discharge of the capacitively-coupled plasma (CCP), widely used in film-growth and/or ion-etching for integrated circuits (IC) fabrication, was approximated, modeled, analyzed, and simulated with software COMSOL. The influence of the discharge conditions, including the voltage, pressure and electrode gap, on the electron density and average electron temperature of the plasma in a 12-inch chamber was investigated. The simulated results show that the allowable major discharge conditions strongly affect the characteristics of CCP plasma. For example, (i) As the voltage increases, both the electron density and average electron temperature increase, accompanied by deteriorating uniformity of their radial distributions; (ii) As the pressure increases, the electron density increases with improving uniform; but the average electron temperature decreases with its uniformity changing in a decrease-increase mode; and (iii) As the electrode-gap increases, the electron density increases and the average electron temperature decreases, with increasingly improved uniformity of their distributions. We suggest that the simulated results be of much technological interest.