PARTICLE GROWTH CAUSED BY FILM DEPOSITION IN VLSI MANUFACTURING PROCESS

In order to simulate the mechanism of particle growth by film depositi on, imaginary-particle formation method has been newly developed. By u sing this formation method, the particle size, the particle height and the position of particle on a wafer could be controlled very easily. In this study, the imaginary-particles of various size larger than 0.1 5 micron and various height were formed on a wafer. By using these ima ginary-particles, the effects of a deposition method, a film thickness , a particle size and a particle height upon the particle growth were investigated. As deposition methods, low pressure CVD method, plasma C VD method and sputtering method were compared. As a result, in all dep osition method, it's clear that the particle growth doesn't depend on the initial size, and is proportional to the film thickness. Their par ticle growth rates are characterized by the deposition method, and the ir values are 1.9, 1.1 and 0.64 in low pressure CVD, plasma CVD and sp uttering method, respectively. These values can be explained by the st ep coverage decided by the deposition method. Furthermore, the particl e growth on imaginary-particle was compared with that on the real-part icle. It is clear that the growth mechanism of the real-particle is cl osely similar to that of imaginary-particle, and the study by use of t he imaginary-particle is very effective to make clear the mechanism of particle growth. Therefore, the particle size which should be control led before deposition process is necessary to be decided by counting t he particle growth shown in this paper.