The investigation of the exposure time effects with pressure in the atomic layer deposition process over micro-trench surface

Tremendous interest has been drawn towards the atomic layer deposition (ALD) as an ultrathin film deposition technique to deposit conformal quality films in the micro-semiconductor industry. However, a further grasp of the ALD process is mandatory to increase the probability of the industry in achieving the necessary improvement which can have a substantial impact on device performance. However, little has been done to investigate the specific effects of the operation pressure on the mechanistic, species transport and reaction rates. Moreover, the effects of these prior properties due to the change of pressure on a complex micro-trench substrate have not been studied yet. Hence, this study focuses on numerically investigating the effect between one and 10 torr operating pressure in the ALD process using the computational fluid dynamic approach. A two-dimensional numerical simulation of the Al₂O₃ ALD thin film fabrication process over a surface with micro-trenches on a substrate is studied. Trimethyl-Aluminium and Ozone were utilized as the metal and oxidation source reactants. To assist the precursor reaction process a 2.5 second exposure time is added within the ALD sequence. The findings illustrated the fluid flow velocity, mass fraction, and growth of the thin-film process. The evaluations unveil close comparison to literature.