Review of strategies for a comprehensive simulation in sputtering devices

TL;DR

This paper reviews current simulation techniques for sputtering devices, highlighting the need for an integrated framework that combines various models to better predict the entire deposition process.

Contribution

It summarizes existing simulation tools and outlines the features needed for a comprehensive, integrated simulation framework for sputtering processes.

Findings

Current simulations predict individual process steps well

Full process integration remains a challenge

A comprehensive framework could improve optimization

Abstract

The development of sputtering facilities, at the moment, is mainly pursued through experimental tests, or simply by expertise in the field, and relies much less on numerical simulation of the process environment. This leads to great efforts and empirically, roughly optimized solutions: in fact, the simulation of these devices, at the state of art, is quite good in predicting the behavior of single steps of the overall deposition process, but it seems still ahead a full integration among the tools simulating the various phenomena involved in a sputter. We summarize here the techniques and codes already available for problems of interest in sputtering facilities, and we try to outline the possible features of a comprehensive simulation framework. This framework should be able to integrate the single paradigms, dealing with aspects going from the plasma environment up to the distribution and properties of the deposited film, not only on the surface of the substrate, but also on the walls of the process chamber.