Introduction and Overview: How to Read (access) this Paper
This paper serves as a dynamic resource for level set methods
applied to topography issues in etching and deposition.
The paper is broken up into two separate pieces; first, an
introduction to level set methods, and second, examples which
show the application of these techniques to semiconductor issues.
The reader may access these pages in any sequence. The supplied order
is designed to supply the relevant details in a sequence which helps
explain the underlying techniques before going to the examples; readers
more interested in results can go directly to those sections.
Previous work on level set methods applied to etching and deposition
was developed in the three
papers
Those papers introduce the application of level set methods to
such problems, and include the effects of ion-milling, masking,
photolithography development, complex flux laws, visibility, and
material-dependent etch rates.
This paper extends that work, and provides for the effects of
surface diffusion, thin layers, triple points, and the
effects of re-deposition and re-emission on the evolving surface
profile. In addition, this site contains all the mpeg movies of the
various simulations.
An overview article about level set methods applied to semiconductor
manufacturing may be found by consulting:
An Overview of Level Set Methods for Etching, Deposition, and
Lithography Development,
J.A. Sethian and D. Adalsteinsson,
IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Devices, 1996. 10, 1, pp.167-184, 1997.
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