Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Volume 2011 (2011), Article ID 528351, 13 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/528351
Research Article

Qualitative Simulation of the Growth of Electrolessly Deposited Cu Thin Films

Department of Applied Mathematics, Feng Chia University, Seatwen, Taichung 40724, Taiwan

Received 22 October 2010; Revised 27 February 2011; Accepted 27 March 2011

Academic Editor: Oleg V. Gendelman

Copyright © 2011 Hsiu-Chuan Wei. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Electroless deposition for fabricating copper (Cu) interconnects of integrated circuits has drawn attention due to its low processing temperature, high deposition selectivity, and high coverage. In this paper, three-dimensional computer simulations of the qualitative growth properties of Cu particles and two-dimensional simulations of the trench-filling properties are conducted. The mathematical model employed in the study is a reaction-diffusion equation. An implicit finite difference discretization with a red-black Gauss-Seidel method as a solver is proposed for solving the reaction-diffusion equation. The simulated deposition properties agree with those observed in experimentation. Alternatives to improve the deposition properties are also discussed.