Profile simulation and stress analysis for optimization of an intermetal dielectric deposition (IMD) process

A combined simulation scheme that includes plasma equipment simulation, profile simulation, and stress simulation is used to investigate the inter-metal dielectric deposition process. In this scheme, information flows in a physically consistent way so that a profile can be described in terms of plasma equipment parameters. It is also proved that the proposed scheme can simulate most of the important topographical characteristics. The predicted topography is used as the input of the stress simulator where the thermo-mechanical stress distribution is calculated. The performance of this integrated simulation scheme is validated by comparing the results of each step with those of experiments. This combined scheme can give far more information than each stand-alone simulation