STEP COVERAGE, UNIFORMITY AND COMPOSITION STUDIES USING INTEGRATED VAPOR TRANSPORT AND FILM-DEPOSITION MODELS

A Monte Carlo sputter flux transport model has been developed for effi cient generation of angular, energy, and thickness uniformity distribu tions for application to integrated circuit metallization films. The m odel allows for arbitrary target erosion profiles and emission angular distributions and uses an energy-dependent gas-scattering model. Veri fication of the model using aluminum and copper pinhole images has bee n obtained. The resulting sputter distribution information can be inpu t into a topography-level film-deposition model to provide step covera ge and microstructure depictions. The combination of these two models has been used to examine metallization issues such as film thickness u niformity, step coverage, compositional variations in alloy films, and magnetron source design.