Three-dimensional modeling and simulation of dry etching process

In this paper, we report the development of the three-dimensional topograph y simulator, 3D-SURFILER (SURface proFILER) for the estimation of topograph ical evolution of the surface during a dry etching process. The cell-remova l algorithm was employed to represent the surface evolution. The surface re action and visibility with shadow effect were taken into account in our spi llover calculation. Our simulations for the typical trench structure with 3 6, 000(30 x 40 x 30) cells take about 20 minutes with 10 Mbytes memory on S UN ULTRA 1. As a test vehicle, we present the simulations of reactive ion e tching (RIE) and anisotropic dry etching of which the aspect ratio is 1.57 and 0.27, respectively.