Simulation of Precision Evaporation Coaters - Beyond Thickness Uniformity

摘要

In today's thin-film fabrication, the demand for precision and throughput has made the empirical or trial-and-error methods inadequate. To develop high-precision equipment and processes for thin film manufacturing we have created a nemerical model for evaporation coaters that feature complex substrate motions, including dome fixtures and planetary motions with planet tilt. The model permits accurate predictions of the thickness uniformity, material utilization and thickness per unit source-material for all these coater configurations. Properties of thin-film materials can be influenced by many factors during deposition. In evaporation coaters with planetary motion the growth of thin film materials can be affected by some important, however, invisible parameters such as the flux intensity and the angle of incidence, which change with time and differ from one location of the planet to another. By providing detailed analysis and statistics for these physical quantities the modeling tool facilitates a new level of understanding and control of the material growth. Features of the numerical model and its applications in coater design, process analysis and optimization are reported.