A Numerical Study on the Evenness of Gas Flow Field in a Vacuum Chamber for Microwave ECR PE-CVD Process on Large Sized Substrates

This paper presents a numerical study on the gas flow field in a vacuum chamber for even thickness deposition on large sized substrates (1.1 by 1.4 m) using the microwave electron cyclotron resonance plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition process. In this study, a numerical model for the flow field in a deposition chamber with an IMP (input maze pathways) is established. The objective is to optimize the configuration of the IMP evens the gas flow in the chamber. The optimal IMP resulted from this study demostrates a flow velocity variation less than 0.3%. Meanwhile, the distribution of SiH3 radical on the substrate surface is also studied. The results show that the concentration of SiH3 radical distributes evenly on the substrate surface with a variation of 0.7% in the longitudinal direction and near null variation in the transverse direction. However, the low Peclet number in the upstream flow direction indicates that the deposits may block the IMP after the chamber have been used for a period of time. Suggestions are provided for mending the problem.